Connecting Communities Through Music

Eight-year-old Valentine walked out of his summer music class in tears. He’d missed the first day, and watching his classmates confidently navigate the drums while he struggled left him overwhelmed. But at Neighborhood Music School, no student is left behind. Teaching artist Matthew Hernandez followed him out, gently reminding the boy of the message printed on his own sweater: “Enjoy Life.” By the next day, with Hernandez’s support and musical guidance, Valentine had learned three instruments and was eagerly preparing for Friday’s performance.

This is the transformative power of music that has resonated from the charming Victorian house in Boyle Heights that houses the Neighborhood Music School. Founded in 1914 by composer and philanthropist Carrie Stone Freeman with a $1,000 gift and a belief that lives change through music, Neighborhood Music School began as a settlement house serving immigrant communities, offering both English instruction to help newcomers learn the language of their new home, and affordable music lessons to share the music of their journeys.

Today, Executive Director Karen Louis leads an organization that has grown far beyond its historic walls. “Community Connection is really that piece that we are constantly exploring here,” Louis explains. “It starts here in Boyle Heights, but it has also reached out” to encompass an extraordinary network of programs.

The school now serves 2,338 students annually – 425 taking one-on-one lessons at the Victorian house, and 1,969 through outreach programs that stretch from PUENTE Learning Center down the street to Long Beach Unified School District. And their high-quality instruction is provided at low or no-cost. Their innovative partnerships include collaborating with USC’s Bionic Ear Lab to serve the hearing loss community and working with the John Tracy Center’s preschool for children with varying levels of hearing impairment.

For Matthew Hernandez, the school represents the full circle of community investment. A former student who received scholarship assistance as a teenager from a single-mother household, he returned as an intern and now teaches the Latin Jazz Ensemble, bringing the sounds of salsa and cumbia to reflect the neighborhood’s rich cultural tapestry. “This is the music we’re going to share,” he says, “and if we can all get involved with music, somehow we’re going to understand each other a little bit better.”

The school’s impact extends beyond musical education. During recent crises – from wildfire evacuations to immigration enforcement – the Victorian house has served as a sanctuary and civic anchor, hosting the “Carrie Stone Freeman Store” (a play on “free-man”) providing basic necessities to families in need. 

With a $2.5 million Peterson Foundation grant supporting expansion plans, Neighborhood Music School is preparing to replicate its open-arms, community-centered model in new locations, carrying forward Freeman’s vision that music inspires community engagement and connection, one note at a time.