The People's Music School

📣✨We are excited to announce that for the first time in the school’s history, The People’s Music School has a home of our own on the Greater South Side: 5410 S State Street! We will be holding our Greater South Side (GSS) programming this fall from this new program site in Washington Park, and we can’t wait to welcome our community to this beautiful new space. 🏫 This new location is an important milestone for our organization and community. Launched in 2016 at the Gary Comer Youth Center with just 15 students, our GSS program has grown more than 10x over 10 years, providing music education to over 180 students today. In the past three years alone, the program has grown by 40%, and it continues to demonstrate strong student year over year retention, excellent musical outcomes, and growing demand. 📈 We are overjoyed to finally have a GSS program space that can meet this demand - one we can finally call our own. 🎵❤️ Located in the former ACE Amandla Charter School, our new Greater South Side program site is wonderfully equipped to host our ever-growing GSS program - with 9 classrooms for music instruction, plus a reception area, staff office, faculty resource center, kitchen, bathrooms, elevators, and instrument storage rooms. 🎷🎻🎹🎧🎤 Interested in supporting our journey as we transition to our new program location? Head to our website and donate today. Your gift helps transform lives 🎁🌟 https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/evmy3WZm. We can’t wait to start the school year off at our new GSS site!

⁉️ What’s your “Question Zero”? 🤨 How does your work solve big problems that matter? How do you get the resources for it? Engage your stakeholders in it? Align the team to deliver on it? Measure it? (Can it even be measured?) How will it continue once you’re not in the picture? 🏫 All these questions and more were at the heart of a powerful, jam-packed, and deeply connection-filled week at Harvard Business School with the Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management certificate program. I left inspired, humbled, and eager to dive back in to the important work we do every day at The People's Music School with the best team in the game. ❤️ I am beyond grateful to the people who enabled this learning experience, including Carol B. who led the scholarship process at the HBS Club of Chicago, and Cici Zheng and Kevin Dolan, HBS alumni and TPMS board members who generously spearheaded my scholarship nomination. 🔥 Shoutout to the badass all-women crew of Chicago leaders also in attendance: Ayesha Jaco MAM at West Side United, Valencia Koker at City Year Chicago, Cheryl H. at Lincoln Park Community Services, Cindy Hallums at Daniel Murphy Scholarship Fund, DeAnna Sherman at True Star Media, Grace A. at Concordia Place, and Natasha Egan at Columbia College Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP). 🤩 And to my incredible living group 21, who I will follow to the ends of the earth: Betsy Brennan, Amanda Gorner, Fred Were, gabrielle mordy, Kate Schramm, Stephen Glaude, and Suzanne L. Singer. We were the best group, period. 💪 Let’s get back to work. #spnm #harvardbusinessschoolexecutiveeducation #executiveeducation #nonprofitmanagement #harvardbusinessschool 

Happy Birthday, Rita! Today, we celebrate and honor our late founder, Dr. Rita Simó. Rita founded The People's Music School in 1976, wanting to bring the free music education she received as a child in the Dominican Republic to students in Chicago. Her legacy as a musician and trailblazer in Chicago lives on to this day. Thank you for inspiring us, Rita!

🎉 🎶 We are excited to announce that The People's Music School has been awarded an Illinois State Board of Education After School Programs grant! This funding from the State of Illinois will help us to continue providing high-quality, tuition-free music education to students across Chicago. Thank you, ISBE, for believing the power of music to transform lives! 🎼 #MusicEducation #EquityInTheArts #ISBEgrant #FreeMusicEducation

🎶 Save the date! The People's Music School's Associate Board invites you to our Play It Forward Fundraiser on Friday, September 19th at 5:30pm at Carol's Pub 🍻 Join us for a fun night of food, drinks, games, and live music by Model-J! 🎸 Get your tickets today or become an event sponsor at https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/gkjRDGJ3. All proceeds go to supporting high-quality, tuition-free music education at The People's Music School. #AssociateBoard #Fundraiser #PlayItForward #YoungProfessionals

📣 Are you a music educator with a passion for phenomenal teaching? Are you a firm believer in the power of music to transform lives? Work at The People’s Music School - we're #hiring! Check out our open positions at https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/gZxA-D8U. #jobopportunities #werehiring #openpositions #musiceducation

🎥 Introducing “Duality” by Jlin, featuring Third Coast Percussion and The People’s Music School! Percussion students at The People’s Music School had the exciting opportunity to play with the Grammy Award-winning ensemble Third Coast Percussion in their arrangement of Jlin's composition “Duality.” The piece is featured on Third Coast Percussion’s album “Perspectives.” After preparing the piece over the course of a few months, students came together for a day to professionally record a music video, side by side with the members of Third Coast Percussion, under the direction of teaching artist Joel Block. Many thanks to Third Coast Percussion for providing such enriching musical experiences for our students. ▶️ Watch the full video here: https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/g8hk_rM3 Video by NuNrml Productions

The People’s Music School is excited to welcome Manuel Chavez, Fernando Ferreyra, Adam Jackson and Cindy Erlinger Murray to our Board of Directors! We are thrilled to have these inspiring leaders aboard as we continue to transform lives through high-quality, tuition-free music education. Please join us in welcoming them! #BoardLeadership #MusicEducation #TransformingLives

🎼 We are delighted to announce that The People's Music School has been awarded a grant from the D'Addario Foundation! Their support allows us to expand our instrument inventory, bringing new and improved instruments to students across our programs. 🎻 🎺 🎸 The D'Addario Foundation works to provide as many children as possible with an extraordinary musical education through grants, scholarships, and high quality, high-impact community programs. More recently, The People's Music School was selected to participate in the Foundation's Immersive Music Challenge, a longitudinal study that will demonstrate the impact immersive music can have on children’s academic performance and mental wellbeing. Thank you, D'Addario Foundation, for your dedicated support of The People's Music School! #MusicEducation #TransformingLives #SupporTheArts

25 students. 8 competitive, audition-based summer music programs. 6 states. 2 countries. $75k+ in scholarships. That’s the power of high-quality, accessible music education. As our #SummerAmbassadors embark on their music intensives, we want to share the impact of our Summer Ambassador program. We are especially grateful for the $25k+ in TPMS scholarships made possible by John W. Rogers, Jr. and the Inde Elgersma Summer Scholarship. Summer is here, and the music plays on! #SummerMusicPrograms #ExperientialLearning #MusicEducation