How Community Music School changes lives
Since its founding in 1994, Community Music School (CMS) has positively influenced the lives of over 2,000 Wake County students through professional music education. Annual enrollment at CMS averages 100 students, all with limited financial resources, for 34 weeks of rigorous private and ensemble instruction and summer camps.At Community Music School, we are building the foundation for a life-long love of music and preparing students to be productive and happy citizens.
Music education builds confidence and ambition, problem solving and planning skills, and the ability to focus; tools that help students succeed in all aspects of their lives. Music is many things to many people: a creative outlet, a coping mechanism, a natural talent, a means to preserve a native culture, a method to meet friends, a path to a college scholarship, and so much more.
Recognition
Accessibility
Community Music School welcomes students of diverse backgrounds, beliefs and abilities. We are committed to providing equal access to music education to all students, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin or the presence of a disability. If your child has a disability, special need or unique learning style, please contact us so that we may discuss and consider how to best accommodate those needs as a student of CMS.
Instructor Matt Vooris leads a classical percussion workshop in Feb. 2015.
The History of Community Music School
Founder Mary Cates with a CMS student in 2013
Following an inspiring visit to the W.O. Smith Music School in Nashville, Tennessee, former Raleigh City Councilwoman Mary Cates motivated local musicians to start a music school to serve financially disadvantaged families in our community. Similar schools have played pivotal roles in nurturing some of America’s great artistic talents, including clarinetist Benny Goodman, singer Johnny Mathis, dancer Martha Graham and actress Helen Hayes.
In 1994, with Mrs. Cates’s dream and driving motivation, $5,000 in seed money obtained by Virginia Zehr, and the hard work of a team of volunteers from N.C. Symphony Orchestra, N.C. State University Music Department, Wake County Schools, Meredith College and individual musicians and community leaders, the first students were enrolled in Community Music School!
Since the beginning, private music lessons have cost our students only $1, thanks to the generosity and support of individual donors, corporations, foundations and public grants.
After years of making things work in borrowed space at local churches and universities, Community Music School settled into rented space on the campus of St. Saviour’s Center on Tucker Street in 2010. We are grateful for the opportunities that this building and the neighboring auditorium provide for our students.
Also in 2010, we joined the Berklee College of Music’s City Music Network, a select, national group of schools offering the Berklee PULSE™ music method. PULSE is an extensive online hub for music education materials, such as one-on-one video tutorials for instrument instruction, history of song and genre, music theory learning games, aural comprehension exercises, composition development, individual and group lesson plans, and much more. This supplemental educational opportunity is provided to students at no cost.
In the fall of 2013, to mark the upcoming 20th anniversary of the school, the Mary Cates Scholarship for Advanced Studies was established to aid exceptional students in their musical endeavors.
Each year, we welcome new and returning students into the school and enrich their lives through music education.
