When you enter CMS for the first time, we want it to feel like home, whether you are coming into a music lesson, joining the staff, serving as a board member, or attending a fundraiser. Our commitment to both high quality music instruction and access sets us apart from other music school options in Wake County.
photo credit: Ealey Images
Our mission is to enrich and inspire children and youth through access to and delivery of high-quality music instruction.
Our vision is to create a community where brighter futures are fostered through music.
At CMS, high quality music instruction means recruiting and retaining high quality instructors and providing high quality instruments in high-quality spaces. It means valuing the diversity of our staff and students and respecting and spotlighting the meaningful experience of every family.
Access means recognizing, acknowledging, and addressing the economic barriers faced by those within our community. It means understanding there is a community need for affordable high quality music instruction to be provided simply and equitably for any who have need.
photo credit: Ealey Images
CMS was founded in 1994 to provide access to high quality music instruction. Since our founding we have provided $1 weekly music lessons. 1 on 1 private music lessons in both contemporary and classical music are offered in all instruments, including piano, guitar, percussion, violin, cello, woodwinds, harp, voice and more, and instruments are provided at no charge. Studies show that learning to play an instrument increases cognitive abilities, builds confidence, and student musicians have higher test scores and graduation rates. CMS faculty, who are all paid artists and educators, have doctorates in music, masters in education, multiple languages are spoken, and they earn a living as professional musicians.
photo credit: Ealey Images
To enroll, students must be between 2nd-12th grade and meet the income eligibility requirements for the Free and Reduced Lunch program, Medicaid, or other financial need. CMS conducts its after school music lessons Monday-Friday, 4-8pm at Longleaf School of the Arts, 322 Chapanoke Rd, Raleigh, NC 27603.
Our History & Values
Following an inspiring visit to the W.O. Smith Music School in Nashville, Tennessee, former Raleigh City Councilwoman Mary Cates recognized the need for affordable music lessons in our community. As a result, she motivated local musicians to start a music school in Raleigh with the mission to provide access to high quality music instruction. Since the founding of Community Music School more than 3,000 students have been impacted.
photo credit: Ealey Images
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 been offered to students for 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. Savior’s Center on Tucker Street in 2010. Also in 2010, Community Music School joined the Berklee College of Music’s City Music Network, a select, national group of schools. In June 2019 Community Music School moved to its new home at the Longleaf School of the Arts, located at 322 Chapanoke Road south of downtown Raleigh.
photo credit: Ealey Images
Each year, Community Music School welcomes new and returning students into the school and enriches their lives through access to high quality music instruction.
- More than 3,000 students served since our founding in 1994
- 5-year strategic planning goal of doubling enrollment to 200 achieved in 2022
- Faculty grown to 20+ paid professional music instructors
Community Music School exists in response to a need created by financial barriers that have kept children from accessing high quality music instruction. By providing affordable music lessons, we create opportunities in our community where children and youth can be mentored, inspired, and brighter futures are fostered.
As an organization we believe:
- Music is foundational to every young person’s development
- Creating a family environment is central in supporting a young person’s musical development
- In the power of transformative student/teacher relationships
- Children and youth should be celebrated for their efforts and accomplishments
- Everyone should feel welcomed into the CMS community and be treated with dignity and respect
- Our community thrives when diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging are centered in all aspects of our organization.
Community Music School defines and embodies diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in the following ways:
The Community Music School student body is composed of children and youth whose families are facing economic barriers and who primarily live in or near Wake County. Our student body, faculty, staff, and leadership represent people of all races, ethnicities, immigration status, religion, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, age, gender, sexual orientation, mental or physical ability, and learning styles and musical abilities. You will see this in action through:
- Our commitment to actively seeking faculty, staff, and leadership that is reflective of our community.
- Sharing our population demographic data in our annual report.
- Cultivating and stewarding relationships with local partners that represent and amplify the community we serve.
