2025 Year in Review
2025 has been quite a whirlwind year! With tremendous music-making throughout, UpBeat musicians of all ages have grown by leaps and bounds. We held our June concert at the beautiful Laguardia H.S. theater with an electric full-orchestra finale of Danzón No. 2 by Arturo Marquez.
In partnership with CLOTH and NY Presbyterian, this summer our ensembles performed weekly as part of NYC’s Open Streets . We are so glad to begin collaborating with these wonderful community partners doing such important work in Washington Heights!
This fall, students also performed at local community events such as La Peña del Bronx’s 38th Anniversary celebration held in the beautiful Maria Sola Community Garden and South Bronx Unite’s HEArts celebration, Flowers for our Elders, honoring members of our community. They performed at The Clemente’s Latinx Youth Summit at MoMA – an inspiring day that celebrated the power of young people and reminded us all of how we don’t need to be defined by others definitions but can tell our own stories.
UpBeat students ended the year with Winter Recitals for family and friends showcasing their hard work over the past few months and sending us into the holiday season with their beautiful songs in our hearts (videos to come!).
A special heartfelt thank you to La Morada restaurant and the wonderful Carolina and Saavedra family for their continued food support for our community through the LEAF Task Force that provides healthy meals and produce throughout the year :)
We were incredibly grateful to have had a string of media attention this year, capturing UpBeat’s strong and joyful spirit and sharing it with the world! We have so much gratitude for James Estrin, NY Times photojournalist who spent hours and hours over many days, getting to know UpBeat’s community resulting in such a beautiful story. That article led to lovely features on the NBC TODAY Show in September and on Spectrum News NY1 by the wonderful Emma Barnett in December.
How honored we are to have had this light shining on UpBeat. We are so proud of this community – the incredible young musicians and their families and of course, the amazing team of teachers who pour their hearts into nurturing these beautiful spirits.
We can’t wait to share with you the many exciting things coming up in 2026!
Save the date for a special UpBeat Ensembles concert at Merkin Hall on March 1st at 5pm and for our large ensembles and orchestra concert at Laguardia HS on Juneteenth!