A retired music teacher has created a youth orchestra for kids living in one of Atlanta’s biggest immigrant corridors.
Juana Alzaga (standing) instructs members of the Buford Highway Orchestra Project at the Latin American Association in Brookhaven on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. The orchestra, which is comprised mostly of children of parents who lack legal status, will be featured in the documentary “La Orquesta” coming this month to PBS. (Hyosub Shin/AJC)
On a recent Wednesday, retired music teacher Juana Alzaga drove to an immigrant-serving nonprofit along Buford Highway and tried to get a room full of third graders to harmonize — and also sit up straight.
“You and your instruments are one,” repeated Alzaga, 71, known to her students as Miss Juanita.
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Juana Alzaga — known to her students as Miss Juanita — helps a member of the Buford Highway Orchestra Project with holding a violin bow the proper way at the Latin American Association on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, in Brookhaven. (Hyosub Shin/AJC)
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Juana Alzaga instructs a member of the Buford Highway Orchestra Project at the Latin American Association on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, in Brookhaven. (Hyosub Shin/AJC)
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Music teacher Juana Alzaga holds promotional printouts for the film “La Orquesta,