December often inspires a sense nostalgia alongside a hope for the new year. This month, we feature a Jumpstart alum who continues to embody the memories and spirit of his time at Colburn combined with his hopeful commitment to guide today’s students toward positive futures through music.
Not many 9-year-olds are asked, “What are you gonna do with your life?” When Josué Mancía’s mother confronted him with that proposition, he admits lacking an answer. That all changed one month later when he discovered the trumpet. While in the fifth grade, Mancia’s school hosted an instrument petting zoo and he recalls falling in love with the instrument almost instantaneously.
“Something just called out to me, ‘I want to do this,’” he remembers. “I love playing it, the way it feels, and the vibrations.”
His school music director also recognized Mancía’s strong connection with the trumpet and advised the youngster to audition for Jumpstart, then a brand-new initiative. In 2013, Colburn launched Jumpstart to offer students from partner Title I schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District the opportunity to receive the highest caliber of musical education. More than a decade later, it still serves as a pathway for grade-schoolers to acquire skills linked to personal and academic success through music. Jumpstart offers 100% scholarships covering instruments, private and group instruction, and performance opportunities. Once Mancía was introduced to the program and Colburn, he instinctively strengthened his commitment to advancing his musicianship. Not only did he spend the rest of his school years as a Jumpstart scholar, but Mancía graduated as a member of the program’s first cohort.
“I started to see a group of students who loved music as much as I did. The level of enthusiasm we had for our instruments was different,” he says.
Those formative experiences laid a foundation for the path Mancía has traveled. As a middle schooler, he proposed, organized, and led the formation of a sixth grade marching band. In high school, he landed two teaching jobs, one at the Irvine School of Music and one at his own school teaching music to at-risk peers. Not only did his students/classmates begin harmonizing, they relayed how the experience impacted their lives outside of class.
“[Some of them] told me that, because of the work we’ve done, [they] stopped smoking, stopped drinking, or started talking to their parents more,” he says. “I was able to confidently do those things because of my experience at Colburn.”
Mancía now pays that positivity forward as Director of Grants and Development and Chair of the music faculty for Strive. The non-profit organization in the Watts community of Los Angeles offers a variety of academic, extracurricular, and arts programs. Over the past three years, he’s developed its music department that entails private lessons, choirs, and rock bands.
“When I first started at Colburn, Jumpstart was a brand-new program and now I see these kids being year-ones of the Strive music program and I relate to them. There’s still so much I can’t wait to expose them to in the sense of higher music education. We’re not there yet at Strive, but we’ll be getting there soon,” he says.
Additionally, Mancía continues to follow his personal musical path. He’s on track to graduate from the California State University-Los Angeles’s conducting program in 2027.
Colburn’s Center for Innovation and Community Impact
Jumpstart is one of three anchor programs in Colburn’s Center for Innovation and Community Impact. Each year, Musical Encounter performances introduce the arts to nearly 7,000 grade schoolers and the Summer Encounter rolls out an immersive camp of music, voice, drama, and dance for fifth graders who have been selected by their teachers.
“We never know what will really spark a student’s passion and their love for the arts, but what really stands out is how welcoming Colburn is to students of all levels and backgrounds. The institution really does live out its mission of access to excellence,” says Justin Sun, Associate Dean, Center for Innovation and Community Impact, who joined the School earlier this year.
For 2026, Sun also seeks to emphasize the Center’s efforts to further prepare Colburn students for their performing arts futures.
“One of the things that’s really exciting about being in this role, aside from the community work we do, is that we’re focused on the career development of our students. I’m working to provide more resources for our Conservatory Teaching Fellows. These are students who teach our Jumpstart students in one-on-one lessons on a weekly basis, and providing them with better training and support to navigate the challenges of being a private teacher is a priority,” he explains.
Looking even further ahead, Sun envisions additional efforts to engage Colburn alumni like Mancía.
“I think they would be a really valuable resource for us to tap into so we can maintain that broader community and our students can learn from our alumni’s experience,” he says.
About Jumpstart
Central to the Colburn School’s commitment to providing equitable access to excellence, Jumpstart equips students with the knowledge and resources they need to become thriving artists by offering 100% scholarship-supported access to the highest quality music education. Jumpstart students receive instruments and materials at no cost and participate in weekly private lessons, group classes, and ensemble rehearsals led by distinguished Colburn faculty and Conservatory Teaching Fellows. The Jumpstart program directly addresses the lack of arts education within public schools and serves as a pathway for students to acquire skills linked to both personal and academic success through music. Special appreciation this year goes to the extraordinary scholarship support of the Max H. Gluck Foundation; Colburn Foundation; East West Bank; Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation; and Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation.