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Juana Alzaga dreamed up an orchestra for children of immigrants. Now there’s a film about it
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LISTEN: The new documentary La Orquesta spotlights an unusual Georgia ensemble: the Buford Highway Orchestra Project. GPB’s Sarah Zaslaw recently sat down with its founder, Juana Alzaga.
The new documentary La Orquesta spotlights an unusual Georgia ensemble: the Buford Highway Orchestra Project. This free afterschool program teaches string instruments to kids from Atlanta's Buford Highway Corridor, mostly American-born children of Central and South American immigrants.
Since 2021, the Buford Highway Orchestra Project has served 96 children total; 52 are participating this year alone. The film gives a glimpse into this growing community program, its eager young players, their tight-knit families, and the group’s indomitable founding leader, retired music teacher Juana Alzaga.
La Orquesta airs Jan. 5 at 10 p.m. on GPB TV as part of PBS’s POV Shorts series; it can also be streamed on GPB’s website. GPB’s Sarah Zaslaw recently sat down with Juana Alzaga to go behind the scenes.
Interview Transcript
Sarah Zaslaw: You come from an immigrant family yourself. You arrived with your parents from Cuba at what age?
Juana Alzaga: I arrived here in the United States in 1966 at the age of 12.
Sarah Zaslaw: And when did you start violin?
Juana Alzaga: I started in Cuba being a classical guitarist at the age of 8. With the immigration, I arrived in Miami in ’66, and I'd lost in every aspect, and especially missing my music. So when I started six months later in seventh grade, there was a band teacher and he held up a violin, so I said, "Well, it has strings and my guitar had strings." Little did I know what I was getting into! And that's how I started.
Sarah Zaslaw: Over a four-decade career, you led school orchestra programs in public schools in Miami and then in Georgia's Gwinnett County. You retired in 2012, but stayed involved in education. And then came the COVID pandemic. What did you do that turned into the Buford Highway Orchestra Project?
Juana Alzaga: All along, I always had this dream of having a Latino orchestra, maybe because of my own experience. So, being an advocate for education in DeKalb County Schools, during the pandemic I [found] myself delivering books and meals to children along the Buford Highway corridor, and I saw how many kids were just so smart. And it just dawned on me — I said, "Wait a minute, I used to be an orchestra director." So I presented the idea to Lily Pabian of We Love Buford Highway, a nonprofit. And I decided, "Well, let's do something crazy." So I started doing Zoom with 10 children. We started showing the instruments and the kids [were] bright-eyed, and I said "Oh, maybe this is something I can get started."
Sarah Zaslaw: What age group do you teach?
Juana Alzaga: We start in the third, fourth, and fifth grades, because our surrounding schools do have small elementary school string programs but our children did not have any orchestra programs. So the earlier, the better. And by that time, third grade, they’re able to read. Not only do I teach the children, but also parents along the way. A lot of the time they’ve not been exposed to this type of caliber music. So it’s a learning experience for both the children and the parents.
Sarah Zaslaw: So this is a free afterschool program and it's serving this immigrant population that is not wealthy. How do they get instruments and so on?
Juana Alzaga: I’ve been blessed with a lot of angels in my career. I ran across William Harris Lee, fine string instruments, who is based in Chicago and they also have a shop here in Flowers Road in Gwinnett. I said, "Bill, I have this crazy idea; I want to start an orchestra." And the first thing out of his mouth is, "What do you need?" So he's been giving all the instruments to the orchestra. Every instrument that you see in that orchestra was donated by W.H. Lee fine instruments.
Sarah Zaslaw: I attended your holiday concert a few weeks ago, and to my eye the kids' technique, their positions, looked pretty solid! Do they get individual instruction too, or is it all group classes?
Juana Alzaga: No, we all do this in-house. We meet twice a week for a little bit over an hour and a half, but I instill in them and I instill in the parents that I give them 25% in the classroom and 75% has to be in the home.
Sarah Zaslaw: Practicing?
Juana Alzaga: Practicing. Absolutely. So after years of trials and errors, I have a real unique way of teaching them, and it's all hands-on. It look like I'm blazing through rows. And I do take my time. I introduce them guitar-style. After a few months, then I introduce the bow. I want that position, that posture, to be absolutely solid, and then we add the bow. I give them a hairless bow and start the positioning of the bow — hands and all that for a few months, exercises, a lot of physical exercises. We’re about to start on the bow in January and they’re all excited: “Oh my god, we're gonna—.” I said, “Only if you have good posture.” “Okay, Miss Juanita, I will certainly do it.”
Sarah Zaslaw: You invite what you call “dignitaries” to your concerts and introduce them to the crowd, including [people] like the mayor of Doraville or teachers and principals from their schools or so on. Why is it important that these people are there?
Juana Alzaga: It's important because we are a community, and they are the children that go to their schools. The goal is for them to see that if we have united parents, mayor, the superintendent — this year, the interim superintendent at DeKalb County School was also present — a representative from the [Georgia] House of Representatives. I want them to see that our community is contributing to this wonderful democracy, that is contributing to make this country and our Atlanta a great place to be. We don't live in an island. It is we that make this community, so this is our kids, this is our future. And we have to invest, and all those people that are there are investing in the children, are investing in this wonderful community.
Sarah Zaslaw: Communications with parents seem to be bilingual. The [concert] program has a lot of Spanish; some of the announcements at your concert were in Spanish. What about rehearsals with the kids?
Juana Alzaga: I definitely do all the classes in English. But interestingly, three years ago, the parents started staying in the classroom. So while I teach, they also hear me. So it is twofold: they see me, they hear English, and also they go home and they know how to help the children practice at home. And so I find myself sometimes doing a bilingual class.
Sarah Zaslaw: The Buford Highway Orchestra Project has been around for more than four years now. Do [students] age out when they reach high school, or what happens when they get older?
Juana Alzaga: Well, that was the problem: They wouldn't leave. This year, with a lot of heartache, my 10th graders had to leave. I made it limited to eighth graders now. I just don't have the capacity. But they wouldn't leave. I was hoping, "OK, they're going to get bored, they’re going to leave," but they kept coming, showing up. So this year what I did is I made a student mentor program. So the children that started with me five years ago are now being mentors to the other children — which is lovely, because one of the things that I instill in them is that when you become that doctor, that plumber, that electrician, that lawyer, you must come back to your community and never forget where you came from and give back. It's the most glorious thing.
Sarah Zaslaw: In addition to the student mentors, there are other people who help you. There’s another conductor, right? Who is she?
Juana Alzaga: Maria Rampoly came from [the orchestral youth program] El Sistema in Venezuela. She started with me because she believed in the program. She's a certified string teacher. And I said, "Oh, well, she's not going to come back." Now she’s been with me for three years; she’s my right-hand person. Also I have a wonderful retired friend, Linda Cherniavsky, who was the director for 35 years at the Westminster Schools, and she's a volunteer. Again, I said, "Well, she's just a good friend; she's just trying to get the program [off the ground]." And she's loving it and she keeps coming back every Thursday. Those are my wonderful two people that make it happen.
Sarah Zaslaw: You mentioned the nonprofit We Love Buford Highway, which has this mission of preserving the multicultural identity of Atlanta in that area. In 2022, they invited a filmmaker to attend one of your concerts. That eventually led to her and her filmmaking partner sort of embedding with the orchestra for a whole school year to make this film. Which year was that?
Juana Alzaga: Monica Villavicencio and Stephanie Liu from Xerophile Studios visited my concert in ’22. And then they did a very unique thing: They got to know the parents. They visited, they talked to the children, they made themselves present. And then we started filming somewhere beginning of ’23, mid-’23. We spent almost a year, off and on, filming, very casual. I said the only way I will do this if it's totally organic. The kids got used to the cameras, they walked around, it was a very natural environment. So what you see on La Orquesta and the whole film was the way it is.
Sarah Zaslaw: One girl in the film says, about you: “She screams because she loves us.” Tell me about love and high expectations.
Juana Alzaga: Oh, I love my children. I always tell them at the end of class, “You were fantastic” — even though in the process I'm very, very strict. I think if we believe and we set high expectations for any child, even though they might come from challenging backgrounds, I believe they step it up. All my life I've been a tough teacher and I don't settle for mediocrity because I think children can step up. If you give an example of caring — that's the most important thing, of caring — and telling them that they can and that it is possible, and sometimes the beginning might sound not the ideal sound that you expect, but it's the process. So in that sense, I'm giving them high expectations. Yes they can, fulfill your self-esteem, and the results will speak for itself.
Sarah Zaslaw: Another moment I love is where a boy talks about loving playing as a team. He stays involved in order to keep having that feeling. What does this program bring to these students and their families besides simply learning an instrument?
Juana Alzaga: Oh, research has been done showing that music is everything, from planning to self-esteem to team player, right? Community, involvement, using both sides of the brain. You know, I always tell the kids your brain is on fire: the executive actions, the emotional, the physical. So I think they take everything [from it] — but mostly I want them to feel good. I want them to feel that they can. And that will have so many ramifications in their lives: having a plan, having a goal and being successful.
Sarah Zaslaw: La Orquesta has already shown at film festivals around the country in 2025 and it started premiering on PBS in November. What kind of feedback have you gotten?
Juana Alzaga: The feedback's been amazing. Some people laugh, some people cry. I get calls all the time how enlightening it has been. So it's been very, very well received.
Sarah Zaslaw: What is your wish for this film? What do you hope it will accomplish?
Juana Alzaga: So many different levels. For one thing, it's a message that a community that does exist, a community that is vital to Atlanta, a community that is suffering, a community that I hope this film will bring a light of hope, a light of understanding and less hate towards immigrants. Because it is a film of love, a film of caring and a light for children that will have a better future, opening doors for them and not shutting them because of their ethnicity and where they come from. So, the message of hope, understanding and future.
Sarah Zaslaw: La Orquesta airs on GPB Monday, Jan. 5 at 10 p.m. Juana Alzaga, thank you so much for sharing your story with us.
Juana Alzaga: Oh, thank you so much for this enlightening interview. Thank you.
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