Abby Levin

Church Street School for Music and Art specializes in process-oriented approaches to arts education. Our objective is to facilitate creativity and give voice to the natural musical and artistic sense through direct, physical experience. In music classes, this means total music education - not just brainwork or fingerwork, but ears, mind and body working together. While we emphasize skill building and the development of technique, we also emphasize improvisation and composition as a way for the students to truly "own" their experiences. In art classes, this means the creation of art from the inside out. Art is a reflection of our life experiences. At Church Street School we have ongoing exhibits of our students' work, but process, not product, is stressed in our classes. Students create with freedom to find their own voices rather than having all the choices made for them.