Jessica Chen

Now in our 109th year, Community Music Center of Boston is a highly regarded and extremely resilient accredited non-profit in Boston's South End. For more than a century, we have built a living legacy of individuals, groups, and neighborhoods united by the power of music and transformed by a dual mission of access and excellence. The Music Center has pioneered community-based, lifelong learning as New England's oldest community school of the arts, and continues to exemplify Boston's diversity with the largest public school outreach partnership of any area arts organization. Our mission is to transform lives throughout Greater Boston by providing equitable access to excellent music education and arts experience. The Music Center's broadest mission is true to our settlement roots: to provide music education to anyone who seeks it, with particular emphasis on giving minorities, immigrants, individuals with special needs, or other underrepresented or marginalized groups an equal advantage. Our student body is composed of nearly 6,000 students each year, on-site in our 8,500 square foot facility at the BCA and in nearly 45 community outreach sites, including 29 public schools and satellites. Our in-house and satellite programs maintain a diverse student body that enrolls students who self-identify as 7% African-American/Black, 27% Asian, 15% White, 5% LatinX, and 46% unknown/mixed/other, while our outreach programs increases our diversity even further. The composition of our cultural constituencies shifts over time, depending on the influx of new immigrant populations, the evolving neighborhood demographics of Boston, and the makeup of students in the public schools.