The San Francisco Community Music Center is a nonprofit music school located in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, US. The CMC is the oldest

community arts Community art, also known as social art, community-engaged art, community-based art, and, rarely, dialogical art, is the practice of art based in—and generated in—a community setting. It is closely related to social practice and social turn. ...

organization in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

. The school's stated mission is to make "high quality music accessible to people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities, regardless of financial means."

History

San Francisco Community Music Center 20240221-02-7

The Community Music Center was founded in 1921 by Gertrude Field, evolving from her Dolores Street Girls Club. The main branch has remained in the same building in San Francisco's

Mission District The Mission District ( Spanish: ''Distrito de la Misión''), commonly known as the Mission ( Spanish: ''La Misión''), is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name ...

since the founding of the school. In 1983, the CMC opened a second branch in San Francisco's Richmond District. In 2012, the CMC purchased the property next door to the school's main building in the Mission District, in order to provide

ADA Ada may refer to: Arts and entertainment * '' Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle'', a novel by Vladimir Nabokov Film and television * Ada, a character in 1991 movie '' Armour of God II: Operation Condor'' * '' Ada... A Way of Life'', a 2008 Bollywo ...

-compliant accessibility and double the number of students. In November 2019, the San Francisco Planning Commission approved the plans for this expansion. In December 2019, the CMC was added to the city's Legacy Business Registry, in recognition of the school's decades of service to the community. In February 2022, its centennial year, the CMC held a groundbreaking for their Mission District expansion. The newly completed expansion was opened to the public in January 2024, and a grand opening ceremony was held the following month.

Programs, staff, and faculty

New Voices Bay Area TIGQ chorus 20191201-8329

Julie Rulyak Steinberg serves as the Community Music Center's executive director. Sylvia Sherman is the program director. The CMC serves over 3100 students annually. Private lessons and group classes in voice, instruments, composition, and music theory are offered, with tuition assistance available on a sliding scale. The CMC hosts several tuition-free programs, including choirs for adults aged 55 and older, the Mission District Young Musicians Program for students aged 13 to 18, a Black Music Studies program, led by Maestro Curtis and Nola Curtis, and the New Voices Bay Area TIGQ Chorus, a mixed voice choral ensemble for

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

intersex Intersex people are those born with any of several sex characteristics, including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binar ...

, and

genderqueer Non-binary or genderqueer gender identities are those that are outside the male/female gender binary. Non-binary identities often fall under the transgender umbrella since non-binary people typically identify with a gender that is differ ...

singers, led by

Reuben Zellman Reuben Zellman is an American teacher, author, rabbi, and musician. He became the first openly transgender person accepted to the Reform Jewish seminary Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2003. Education Zellman received his B ...

. Former ambassador and philanthropist

James Hormel James Catherwood Hormel (January 1, 1933 – August 13, 2021) was an American philanthropist, LGBT activist, diplomat, and heir to the Hormel meatpacking fortune. He served as the United States Ambassador to Luxembourg from 1999 to 2001, and was ...

was one of the first donors to help fund the New Voices chorus.

Notable guests and alumni

Marcus Shelby with students at San Francisco Community Music Center 20240221-02-99

Notable guest performers and instructors at the school have included

Emanuel Ax Emanuel "Manny" Ax (born June 8, 1949) is a Grammy Award-winning American classical pianist. He is known for his chamber music collaborations with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinists Isaac Stern and Young Uck Kim, as well as his piano recitals and p ...

Jascha Heifetz Jascha Heifetz (; December 10, 1987) was a Russian-American violinist, widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time. Born in Vilnius, he was soon recognized as a child prodigy and was trained in the Russian classical violin styl ...

Max Roach Maxwell Lemuel Roach (January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007) was an American jazz drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in history. He wo ...

, and

Marcus Shelby Marcus Shelby (born February 2, 1966, in Anchorage, Alaska)Jones, Kenneth"Marcus Shelby Keeps Jazz Orchestra Rolling". MTV, December 21, 2000. is an American bass player, composer and educator best known for his major works for jazz orchestra, '' ...

. Notable alumni include singers

Johnny Mathis John Royce Mathis (born September 30, 1935) is an American singer. Starting his 69-year career with singles of standard (music), standard music, Mathis is one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century and became highly popular as ...

and

Lucine Amara Lucine Amara (born Lucine Tockqui Armaganian; March 1, 1925 – September 6, 2024) was an American soprano who was chiefly based at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Biography Lucine Tockqui Armaganian was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on M ...

References

External links

* {{authority control Education in San Francisco Educational institutions established in 1921 Music schools in San Francisco Non-profit organizations based in San Francisco Music venues in San Francisco 1921 establishments in California