For two decades, a downtown Oakland music school has been teaching jazz, steel pans, Afro-Cuban rumba and big-band charts to new generations of players. This week it marked a milestone and the start of a transition.
Twenty years
The Oakland Public Conservatory of Music (OPC) held its 20th anniversary gala on Saturday, Oct. 24, at 1515 Webster St., KQED reports. Guests were asked to dress as their favorite musicians. The East Bay Express says the night honored Rhiannon Giddens, composer Mary Watkins and trombonist Steve Turre. It also posthumously honored pianist Ed Kelly, guitarist Calvin Keys and drummer Victor McElhaney, a former OPC student.
Founder Dr. Angela Wellman, a 70-year-old trombonist, built OPC to teach Black music as the root of American music. Its first class schedule is dated January 2006. "It's really about lifting up the legacy of our music," she told KQED, "particularly Black music that was created post-Atlantic slave trade." She plans to step aside next spring for a new generation of leaders, according to the Express. A successor has not been named.
The money problem
The Express reports that OPC still rents its space. In December 2024, facing a $130 million deficit, the Oakland City Council cut $683,532 in arts grants, wiping out the general fund's support for 48 arts groups and festivals. Wellman told the paper she had four grant rejections in a row this summer. "A lot of people don't even know this place exists," she said.
KQED notes that OPC regularly brings touring artists in to perform and work with students, so they understand "whose shoulders they're standing on."