Concord Community Music School

Concord Community Music School (Concord, NH) is a musical community that includes all ages, musical abilities, and backgrounds. We reach across barriers of income, disability, ethnicity, and perception to bring people together around the love of music.

The School was founded in 1984 and currently enrolls approximately 1,500 students (more than 1,100 onsite and about 390 offsite) from across more than 130 municipalities. We offer live lessons, classes, community outreach, and more than 200 public events, concerts, recitals, lectures, and weekend workshops annually.

Our 50 faculty gently guide the students to a rewarding next level of success. Success might mean helping a three-year-old experiencing trauma to find coping skills through dance movement therapy, or it might mean coaching a talented high school student toward winning a national musical theater competition. The artistic excellence embodied in their teaching, along with their sincere belief that everyone can participate in the joyful and healing powers of music, is at the heart of our mission.

Onsite: a faculty of 50 provides comprehensive instruction to students of all ages, from pre-school to the elderly, in private and group instrumental and voice lessons. Students can choose from multiple genres (e.g., classical, jazz, folk, and South Asian music) and explore music in many ways: via audio production, ensembles and choruses, music theory, ear training, composition, and expressive arts therapies. The building features 25 teaching studios, four ensemble rooms, a recording studio, and three performance spaces.

Offsite (Music in the Community Initiative; MICI): For the past 28 years, CCMS has partnered with area schools, daycare centers, hospitals, mental health agencies, veterans homes, and nursing homes to serve those who have limited access to positive, high-quality, creative, and musical learning experiences. Caring and generous donors help bridge the “opportunity gap” so that everyone may participate. While evolving with the times, MICI remains true to its 1998 mission and goals of structural innovation, geographic reach, and depth of programming. 

MICI services cannot be easily replicated by, or outsourced to, other agencies. Our therapists are trained in music therapy, dance movement therapy, counseling, and music/dance education, our programs are uniquely specialized, and our curricula are customized to meet individual client needs (even in a group setting).

CCMS remains viable and continues to grow through:

• earned income from tuition, space rentals, and public performances;
• contributed income from individual donors like you, as well as sponsors, corporations, foundations, and other grantors;
• ongoing community involvement:  participation in area arts-related organizations such as Creative Concord; partnerships with area agencies;
• thoughtful planning and expansion based on our remaining true to our mission “to provide the widest
  array of music education, performance, and engagement opportunities to people of all ages, and to ensure that everyone can access these opportunities regardless of financial ability, ethnic or cultural heritage, age, physical ability, or other barriers to engaging in music”; and
• careful spending in line with our actual income and the annual budget approved by our Board of Trustees.