Forging community foundations through education and sound

LOOKING BACK

For a decade now, Boyle Heights Beat’s youth journalists have reported on some of the neighborhood’s most outstanding businesses, institutions and individuals. In this recurring series, we’re revisiting our sources and updating some of those stories.

It’s difficult to walk a mile in any direction through Boyle Heights and not hear music. It’s blaring out of garages, bleeding out of stores like Candelas Guitars, and heard at Mariachi Plaza as the musicians practice around the kiosk throughout the day.

Fittingly, a music school just down the street from the iconic plaza has seen hundreds of students, immigrants, and teachers walk through its doors. For 110 years, Neighborhood Music School has served Boyle Heights in lessons, as a community space, and as a testament to preserving music education East of the river. 

“I’ve grown up here,” said Clarabel Lara, 17, as she warmed up in one of the upstairs rehearsal rooms. Her dad, Henry, signed her up for lessons at the school when she was five years old, and she’s learned and practiced there since. 

“I was a little bit opposed. I wanted to do kid things, and this would be a responsibility I wasn’t sure I’d want to follow through with. But I ended up following through, and I really love playing,” Lara said. 

Between juggling homework and extracurriculars, Lara dedicates most of her free time to practicing classical piano compositions from Chopin to Debussy.

On an evening in February, Lara prepared to play Prelude in G Minor by Sergei Rachmaninoff, a piece she practiced for five months with teacher Natalia Hudson. She said she was slightly nervous about the scholarship audition, a bi-yearly assessment of progress that determines financial aid to students.

If nerves were affecting the young musician, an untrained ear couldn’t tell. Without turning the pages of sheet music in front of her, Lara masterfully bounced across the keyboard with equal finesse and grace while her feet tapped and held the dampening pedals below.

Many of the 29 instructors at the school teach most classical instruments, including the most sought-after, piano and violin. Upright bass, cello, ukulele, voice, drums, and guitar are some instruments heard faintly from the Victorian structure’s windows. 

Karen Louis, the school’s director since 2019, said she thinks of the space as an anchor to the neighborhood as it serves close to 350 students per month and thousands over its 110-year history.

“One of the things I love about the school and our teaching artists is that they are all vastly different in the same way all of our students are vastly different. And they’ve all really encouraged us to be that creative home for the students as well as the full community who’s here,” Louis said. 

The school frequently collaborates with other schools and organizations, like assisting with the music class program at the Puente Learning Center just a block away. The school also partners with USC’s Bionic Ear Lab to teach music and instrumentation to students who live with hearing loss.  

CELEBRATING THE SCHOOL’S IMPACT

To mark 110 years of serving Boyle Heights, school staff, students, board, donors, and other guests crowded an event space at the Los Angeles River Center and Gardens in Cypress Park on February 10th. Luis Conte, a famed Cuban percussionist who has worked with artists like Madonna, Carlos Santana, and Shakira, was honored at the event. Conte recognized the value of the school to the Eastside. 

“It’s like ultra, major, amazingly important and significant to the community, man,” Conte said. “You’ve got people who can’t afford [lessons]. There are a lot of kids who want to play but can’t afford it, and their parents can’t pay for the lessons. Hopefully, it gets bigger because we need that.”

Germaine Franco, the Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated composer best known for her work on the Disney films Coco and Encanto is a sitting board member of Neighborhood Music School. She said the school’s mission in music education is what drew her to the institution.

Franco called the school and the Victorian home where it’s housed a sanctuary. 

“It’s a home, it’s a community, and we want to provide a safe haven for students and families to come together and celebrate life and music. And in the meantime, they’re improving their math, reading, and critical thinking skills. We’re educating students through music.” 

AN INSTITUTION FOUNDED TO TEACH MUSIC AS WELL AS LANGUAGE 

The school was founded in 1914 by Carrie Stone Freeman, a Wisconsin-born composer active across many Los Angeles music societies during the early 20th century. 

Previously called the Neighborhood Music Settlement, the school’s mission was to teach local immigrant communities English, the language of their new home, and music as a marketable skill, according to the school’s director. 

By the mid-1920s, the school served students young and old from over 18 nationalities, including Russians, Jews, Italians, Germans, and Japanese. Thus began the effort to bring multicultural music education to Eastside neighborhoods.

The school was moved to its current location on Boyle Ave. from Mozart Ave. in Lincoln Heights in 1933, and with it came a name change. Its current two-story location holds eight practice rooms, each with its antique piano, and the building is one of two 19th-century houses in the neighborhood. 

While the school was always focused on classical training, as trends in music changed in the 1930s and 40s, students were more interested in learning jazz techniques and other styles of instrumentation. 

LASTING IMPACT ON THE COMMUNITY 

Even though its mission was always to serve the community, at one time, the school had trouble enrolling students from the neighborhood, as reported by Melissa Martínez in 2011. The then Boyle Heights Beat student reporter now works for the Neighborhood Music School as their registrar and takes piano lessons there.  

Roughly a third of the school’s students are on a scholarship and are eligible for tuition reductions by as much as 95%. The school also offers scholarships that provide free ensemble lessons to students interested in learning in group sessions. Monthly lesson costs usually sit between $68 and $136 for students under 18 and $75 and $150 for adults, depending on session length. 

Today, according to the director, most students are from the Eastside, with many coming from Boyle Heights and City Terrace. The school also prioritizes inviting neighbors to open houses and recitals and conducts performances at a local hospital, retirement communities, and other Los Angeles venues. 

Although Lara said she doesn’t want to become a professional pianist, playing has made her more confident and given her something she never expected. 

“Without music, I wouldn’t even be the person I am today,” said Lara. “Piano has given me discipline, and it’s given me something to be responsible for.”

Her father agrees. “Communities like Boyle Heights need places like this.”

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As aforementioned, former Boyle Heights Beat youth reporter Melissa Martínez covered the school where she now works in 2011.