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Page 16 Palisades News November 18, 2015<br />
Conductor<br />
Stoyanovich<br />
Joins PaliHi<br />
By LAUREL BUSBY<br />
Staff Writer<br />
Ayear ago, Elizabeth Stoyanovich and<br />
her husband happened to drive by<br />
Palisades Charter High School<br />
while on vac<strong>at</strong>ion.<br />
Stoyanovich was immedi<strong>at</strong>ely taken with<br />
the campus and thought the school probably<br />
had “a gre<strong>at</strong> music department.” This<br />
summer, while back <strong>at</strong> home on Bainbridge<br />
Island, Washington, she saw a PaliHi job<br />
posting for an orchestra/jazz band director<br />
and applied. She interviewed via Skype and<br />
felt an “immedi<strong>at</strong>e connection with the<br />
music staff.”<br />
Then “when I came here and saw them<br />
teach, I knew I was in the right place. Mr.<br />
[Joshua] Elson and Ms. [Arwen] Hernandez<br />
were amazing,” Stoyanovich said. “This<br />
place is exciting to work <strong>at</strong> and teach in—the<br />
kids and the area . . . They’re just really, really<br />
good sweet kids. They want to learn. You<br />
want to share th<strong>at</strong> excitement of educ<strong>at</strong>ion.”<br />
Stoyanovich now leads two orchestras <strong>at</strong><br />
PaliHi—one with about 50 experienced<br />
players—plus a jazz band th<strong>at</strong> has about 18<br />
Blood Drive<br />
November 22<br />
Dr. Mike Martini is organizing a community<br />
blood drive, sponsored by Providence<br />
St. John’s Health Center. The event<br />
will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on<br />
Sunday, November 22, <strong>at</strong> the American<br />
Legion Hall, 15427 La Cruz Dr. For an appointment,<br />
call (310) 829-8886 or e-mail<br />
sherry.arroyo@providence.org.<br />
Donors are reminded to e<strong>at</strong> a nutritious<br />
meal beforehand, drink plenty of<br />
fluids and bring a photo identific<strong>at</strong>ion.<br />
Donors will receive a coupon for a pint of<br />
Baskin-Robbins ice cream.<br />
Elizabeth Stoyanovich is the new orchestra/jazz band instructor <strong>at</strong> Palisades High School.<br />
members, including a jazz singer. In addition,<br />
she is teaching music to two classes of<br />
ninth graders who are learning the basics of<br />
not<strong>at</strong>ion and rhythm. “My days here are so<br />
full and rich working with the kids,” she said.<br />
An experienced conductor and former<br />
oboeist who has spent much of her life immersed<br />
in music, Stoyanovich has enjoyed a<br />
vast array of musical positions, ranging from<br />
guest conducting the Paris Conserv<strong>at</strong>ory<br />
Orchestra and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra<br />
to spending nine years as the music/artistic<br />
director of the Orchestra of Saint Cecilia.<br />
She has also taught <strong>at</strong> both CSU Fullerton<br />
and UCLA and studied under Leonard<br />
Bernstein <strong>at</strong> the Tanglewood Music Center.<br />
“Some people like to do the same thing<br />
for 20 years,” Stoyanovich said. “I like to<br />
build programs and take on challenges.”<br />
Like Bernstein, teaching and conducting<br />
have always called to Stoyanovich, and she<br />
found her time with Bernstein inspiring.<br />
He was a “n<strong>at</strong>ural teacher—a gre<strong>at</strong> performer—but<br />
he loved teaching. You could<br />
see th<strong>at</strong> in him, every part of him.”<br />
Stoyanovich has numerous plans to help<br />
PaliHi’s music program and its students.<br />
She aims to raise money to hire coaches to<br />
work with the kids and intends to enter them<br />
in competitions. “I don’t care if we come in<br />
last place. It’s vital to listen to other kids your<br />
age and see wh<strong>at</strong>’s wh<strong>at</strong>. Th<strong>at</strong>’s how they<br />
really learn—going into those situ<strong>at</strong>ions.”<br />
Stoyanovich is also working to connect to<br />
the students <strong>at</strong> Paul Revere Middle School,<br />
“so they know they have a home here. I want<br />
them to know we care about them, and if<br />
they want to continue, there’s a place for<br />
them here.” She added th<strong>at</strong> she is seeking out<br />
local music teachers, musical families in the<br />
area, and people who support the arts to<br />
help the program grow and flourish, but she<br />
noted, “nothing will grow a program faster<br />
than the kids being happy about it.”<br />
As a conductor, she toils with the kids to<br />
“break things down and clean things up—<br />
99 percent of our time together is refining<br />
a work.” She describes it as visiting “dingy,<br />
dark places. It’s like going to the coal mines<br />
to turn on electricity. It takes time and effort,<br />
and th<strong>at</strong>’s okay. We’re all doing it together.<br />
We’re growing together.”<br />
A long-term goal for her and the department<br />
in general involves building a visual<br />
and performing arts center for the school to<br />
house the cramped music, arts, dance, photography<br />
and ceramics programs. “I’m looking<br />
forward to being part of the team th<strong>at</strong> is<br />
going to help realize th<strong>at</strong> in this area,” said<br />
Stoyanovich, who noted th<strong>at</strong> there are about<br />
400 students enrolled in the music program.<br />
A passion for music and the arts runs in<br />
her family. Her husband, P<strong>at</strong>rick, is a composer<br />
and pianist, while one daughter,<br />
Antonia, studies photography <strong>at</strong> Cooper<br />
Union, and the other, Sophia, is a violinist<br />
<strong>at</strong> Juilliard.<br />
“We e<strong>at</strong> and bre<strong>at</strong>he it 24/7,” Stoyanovich<br />
said. She added, “I think music is a really<br />
honorable profession. I love music. I think<br />
it’s n<strong>at</strong>ural th<strong>at</strong> I would want to share my<br />
love of music with others.”<br />
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