By Coral Gables Gazette staff
A Miami youth orchestra led by a musician whose own training reaches back to the beginnings of Venezuela’s famed El Sistema will bring Klezmer and Romani musical traditions to the Coral Gables Woman’s Club on Sunday, joined by flamenco dancers and a vocalist.
The Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil de Miami, under the direction of Maestro Jhonny Mendoza, will perform from 5 to 9 p.m. Aug. 23. The program combines orchestral arrangements associated with Eastern European Jewish and Romani music with flamenco dance by Ani Mahia and students from the Ani Mahia Dance Studio and vocals by Victoria Bazzocchi.
An orchestra with roots in El Sistema
The youth orchestra was founded in 2021 by Mendoza’s Academia del Violín and is associated with Proyecto Orquesta Sinfónica de la Florida, a Miami nonprofit that uses music education as a tool for what it describes as social transformation.
Its connection to El Sistema is personal as well as philosophical. The organization says Mendoza participated in 1975 as a founding member of Venezuela’s National Youth Orchestra under conductor and educator José Antonio Abreu, whose program grew into the international movement known as El Sistema. Decades later, Mendoza drew on that experience in creating the Florida organization and youth orchestra.
The orchestra follows El Sistema’s emphasis on discipline, ensemble training and access to music education. Students from Mendoza’s academy are selected for their performance and consistency and receive full scholarships to participate. The program has two levels: Jóvenes Arcos, for children ages 7 to 10 preparing for orchestral playing, and the Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil de Miami, whose musicians range from 11 to 21.
Mendoza, a Venezuelan-born violinist, composer and record producer, founded both the academy and the youth orchestra. His biography describes a career spanning orchestral, chamber, jazz and popular music, along with work as a session musician, composer and producer.
Klezmer, Romani traditions and flamenco
Sunday’s program brings two guest elements alongside the orchestra.
Ani Mahia, a Miami flamenco dancer, teacher and director of the Ani Mahia Dance Studio, will perform with students from her studio. Mahia has previously collaborated with Mendoza in South Florida cultural and educational programs, including a 2025 Florida International University event combining music, movement and cultural storytelling.
Vocalist Victoria Bazzocchi also will join the orchestra.
Organizers describe the concert as exploring expressive melodies, dance rhythms and orchestral arrangements associated with Eastern European Jewish and Romani musical traditions, with flamenco adding a distinct Spanish dance tradition to the program.
The event is presented by Johmen Productions in collaboration with Proyecto Orquesta Sinfónica de la Florida and the Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil de Miami, with support from the Academia del Violín.
A historic room for a young orchestra
The setting has its own history.
The Coral Gables Woman’s Club clubhouse at 1001 E. Ponce de Leon Blvd. was completed in 1937 as a joint clubhouse and public library and was Coral Gables’ first Depression-era Works Progress Administration project. Built largely from locally quarried oolitic limestone, the complex is considered a rare local example of Depression Moderne architecture.
For more than three decades, part of the building housed the Coral Gables library before it moved to its current Segovia Street location in 1969. The complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
The Woman’s Club traces its origins to a group of 49 women who began organizing in the early 1920s. Its civic legacy includes establishing Coral Gables’ first free public library and operating the Coral Gables Children’s Dental Clinic, which began in 1939.
If you go…
The Klezmer Romani & Gipsy Concert runs from 5 to 9 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 23, at the Coral Gables Woman’s Club, 1001 E. Ponce de Leon Blvd.
General admission tickets range from $44.52 to $49.87 and are non-refundable.
