In the current economic crisis, many institutions have had to scale back significantly on programs, jobs, and hours.
One institution that has not seen any dramatic changes since the recession took full force is the Third Street Music School. According to the school’s website, Third Street Music School Settlement is the nation’s oldest community music school, founded in 1894.
While the Arts are usually the first to get cut during a fiscal crunch, it seems that Third Street has found a way to keep the music alive.
Scott Anderson, a guitar instructor at the Music School, gave some insight into how the school has managed to stay afloat.
“As far as I know, none of my students have been directly affected by the current crisis. No one has dropped,” he said. “I have heard from members of the administration that several families have approached the school after recently losing their job. I think the school has been able to help them.”
According to the school’s website, there is a scholarship fund in place for students, as well as contributions from alumni and benefactors. If the school is feeling the economic crunch, they have not forced their students to feel it yet.
While Anderson does not believe that that the school has been affected yet, he does think it may come to that,
“In my personal opinion, it’s too early to see significant impact from this current crisis. My teaching income has not been affected at all. But certainly, as time goes on, and if this recession turns into a depression, it will.”
In the meantime the school is continuing with the expansion that has been taking place for the past few years, focusing especially on the jazz, wind, and brass departments.
Anderson also brought to mind the special mission that Third Street Music School continues to hold, referencing a mural on the side of the building that was painted after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks which includes a quote by Leonard Bernstein,
“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”
This devotion to making music in the face of adversity seems to be holding true in these trying times.