Alumni

Since 1968, east bay center has guided tens of thousands of youth and

young adults in discovery of their gifts.

The result is a rich array of deeply complex and diverse alumni possessing distinctive voices and uncommon perspectives.

Many of our students have gone on to found independent institutions and projects – from musician /producer Andre River’s Poor Man Records in Richmond to tenor saxophone virtuoso Howard Wiley’s Angola Project and former break dancer now gang prevention specialist Gonzalo Rucobo’s Bay Area Peacekeepers. Others like Antoine Hunter, a deaf modern jazz dancer/choreographer, and Dolores Garcia, a dancer/musician of traditional Mexican Son, have become performer/faculty members at the Center itself, while capoeirista/pianist/filmmaker Simmie Foster attends her final year of medical school at Yale – after completing a PHD there in immunology, and Richard Zhu, award-winning classical pianist, and recent graduate from U.C. Berkeley begins a work life combining a major in business and music. Still others, like Redge Green, confined to a wheelchair since being shot at age seven, balance a movie and recording career with national youth empowerment and Ministry work, while Padre Masseo (formerly R. Gonzales) is a Franciscan Priest whose statewide youth development includes a popular web site geared towards advice for Latino youth.

Not all alumni become virtuoso jazz musicians, medical scientists, or community activists. Many more simply experience the life of imagination, and the joy of expression in a new way, often making new friends for life along the way.

As to the conservatory style or planned outcome of every student – we frame few specifics. The Center is, after all, a place of intensive discovery, during a time of intensive change.