ABOUT

History & Timeline

The Neighborhood Music School began in 1914, in a little cottage on a street in Lincoln Heights that was named —quite appropriately—Mozart. We moved to our permanent house on Boyle in 1933, right down the street from Mariachi Plaza where the music permeates the neighborhood with history, legacy, and joy.

CARRIE STONE FREEMAN

Founded by musician-composer Carrie Stone Freeman, it was known at the time as the Los Angeles Music School Settlement.

Freeman’s gift of $1,000 gave life to this learning center where low-cost lessons enabled children to develop musical talent that might otherwise not have been available to them.

Follow her lead!

Make a donation or become a member of the Founder’s Circle for highest impact!

Lee Shippey

(LA Times, 1931)

“one of the most admirable institutions in Los Angeles.”

By 1924,

more than 300 students per month were taking lessons at the school—a group that represented as many as 18 nationalities, including Russians, Jews, Italians, Germans and Japanese. The nine teachers—some of whom were members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and often earned $5.00 a lesson elsewhere—were paid 50 cents an hour at the LA Music School Settlement. Students paid as little as 12 cents an hour; some were given scholarships.

Renamed the Neighborhood Music School,

the nonprofit school moved to its current location on South Boyle Avenue in 1933, where it continues to provide low-cost music instruction and scholarships to students of all ages. Its home is now a charmingly restored 19th century Victorian house where a cacophony of musical sounds can be heard, as young students and their families walk through the colorful rose garden that leads to the entrance.

Steve Lopez

LA Times

“This is not a building, but a home. Moms and dads wait quietly in the foyer, toddlers in their laps, as their older children disappear into practice rooms to unravel the mysteries of the pianos, stringed instruments or woodwinds. You can almost hear the sighs of generations of children forced to plow through the scales, and you can easily imagine the confidence-building joy as they make breakthroughs, young brains absorbing a new language.”

With a current in-house enrollment

of over 400 students per month, and over 700 through outreach programs and residencies, NMS also provides performance opportunities such as “Showtime,” the school’s monthly informal recitals where students perform for their families and each other at the end of each half hour lesson.

The teaching staff

is composed of professional musicians and educators whose mentoring and inspirational teaching methods encourage each student to strive for excellence in all that they do, as well as creating the foundation for a lifetime of music-making and enjoyment that is most often the natural outcome of this learning process.

Having been an institution in the Boyle Heights community for more than one hundred years,

the school takes its civic duty seriously, regularly inviting neighbors for recitals, Concerts in the Parlor, Master Classes and other ongoing events, including an annual Open House/Community Festival. NMS students perform locally within the community, bringing joy to their audiences and instilling our musicians of all ages with pride of accomplishment and an understanding of the importance of helping others.

As was the Mission
in its Founding

Neighborhood Music School continues to build bright futures, one note at a time by inspiring minds and enriching community through music education.

The Settlement Movement and
Community Music Schools

Did you know that Neighborhood Music School is one of the oldest community music schools in the US? Our school has roots in the settlement movement that began in the 1880s and peaked in the 1920s. Settlement houses provided educational and social services for immigrants and the community-at-large as a way to bridge social and economic gaps. At the time of its founding, NMS was known as the Los Angeles Music Settlement and focused on providing English and music instruction.