“We never really had a place where all the things happened together…. Now we do. Now, you literally see what’s going on in the performance space. There are windows on all four sides on two levels so there’s always permeability between this very special space and the activities in the building. Part of it is that the performance space needs to be pushing us to fill it with music. Sitting there it’s like an itch that will draw us into more activity–students and professionals alike.”
Sebastian Ruth
Founder and Artistic Director, Community MusicWorks
From the outside, 1326 Westminster’s jagged wooden facade catches the sun and tosses the light back and forth. On a cloudy day or at dusk, the light changes and softens, flowing quietly across the building’s front. Like Community MusicWorks (CMW) itself, this new building is never one thing–inside becomes outside and outside in.
Last Saturday, Sept 28th, CMW opened the doors of its new center with a great big block party featuring a newly commissioned work, “Fabric,” by the composer Wang Lu–along with a musical parade, food trucks, dancing and a message, sent loud and clear to the neighborhood: ‘We love you; we thank you; we are you!”
The Big Parade from 1392 to 1326 Westminster. Courtesy of Community MusicWorks.
The strip of Westminster Street around 1326 is a mix of both stately and shabby Victorian homes, the Armory park and playground, and street-level businesses that focus on the people who live and work here: a diner (breakfast all day, regular milk only, closes at 2 pm), a late night restaurant (fried chicken and nachos), a vet (there are lots of pets in the West End of PVD), fruit stand, liquor store, bakery, neighborhood association, and at 1392, a little building, its storefront painted a soothing palm green, deep red, and white with ‘community’ on one window and ‘musicworks’ on the other.
For 27 years, this was CMW’s home–until this past weekend. Now, with the official Sept. 28th opening, there is this architecturally-, sonically- and environmentally-significant new building in Providence that will house all of CMW: students, parents, musicians and staff, neighbors and the public. There are places in this off-kilter parallelogram for kids to perch, clean air for them to breathe (the building is certified healthy), and room for everyone: room to practice, singly and in groups, room for instruments and backpacks and books and musical scores and music stands and there is this vast, welcoming, inspiring performance space. Wood and windows, a small slice of glass floor to look down through and wonder, a cafe and gathering places for parents and younger siblings to wait. So much light and surprisingly, quiet.
Student Cesar Mendez, now 17, a high school senior, has been with CMW for 9 years, beginning with the viola at age 8. Zully Mendez, Cesar’s mom explains that her husband loves music and is convinced “that music and the other arts help the brain to develop.”(Studies tell us he is not wrong.) He felt strongly that Cesar (and his older brother) should have access to music growing up. And Cesar was musical. Learning music came easily to him, he had ‘a good ear.’ But, Zully says, “the training and discipline comes from his time at CMW. Like for this performance today–he knew he would be playing and went to his room every night to practice.” His parents said not a word. They didn’t have to.
Zully goes on, “It’s not just the music. As he’s developed, he’s become responsible to his craft, especially since moving into Phase 2 training, which is for the older students. The patience he learned here has also helped him to excel academically. There’s fun, too, and friendships, and he’s learned to be responsible to the group.” CMW gave support during COVID, even when lessons were remote and parents were afraid, just like our children.” At CMW there was always time for a kid to be heard.
Sebastian Ruth is a man who thinks carefully about what he is going to need. When he started CMW, 27 years ago, he was a musician and a student at Brown, looking for something more–a chance to transform lives for the better, his own included. He understood that music can move us to do better but like painting, it is often placed in an imposing space (a museum or concert hall), separated from everyday life. Locked up in intimidating and expensive spaces that many cannot access, how can one experience the power of art? He knew other musicians who felt as he did–uncomfortable with the artificial distance created to keep the arts for some, but not for all.
Sebastian Ruth, Founder and Artistic Director, Community MusicWorks.
An unexpected encounter with Professor Maxine Greene of Columbia’s Teachers College (who was at Brown giving a lecture), helped him choose the path he now walks. A philosopher, aesthetic educator and advocate for the arts, imagination, and social justice, Greene’s powerful words inspired the Brown University student to see his ideas as possible. “I am what I am not yet.” Unlock the music in young people, equip them with access and create a space to nurture the process of making music. Teach them music with musicians as their teachers and then teach them so much more: discipline, patience, problem-solving, critical thinking, respect and community. This, at a time when arts education was being cut from programs across the US. Ruth continues:
“[We are] a group of musicians, living, working, teaching, performing in the neighborhood…. A professional music ensemble, searching for its own voice in the world and working on our practice. For young people to see that, to come alongside it and be influenced by it, inspired by it–that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Enza Cucitrone, 17, is a cello player and student at Classical High. Like Cesar, she, too, is in Phase 2 now and next fall will be leaving for college. She has been with CMW for 8 years. She lives in the neighborhood, close to CMW. Asked what the new building means, Enza talks about:
“community and pride and the opportunity to be together, to see the young ones and be seen by them in our new home. It helps having a space where people can come together and have fun. It’s unique in that classical music can be very elite–but CMW plays a wide range of music. And it all grows from within. I may not become a professional musician but I will always play music.
In 1997, Ruth and his group of professional musicians along with a handful of students, began the unorthodox storefront strings education program while also giving a home to a professional string quartet, which eventually became the MusicWorks Collective (CMW’s resident professional chamber group).
Living in the community, the CMW musicians came to know the West End/Southside community–rich and diverse, a mixture of many cultures, races, and varying socioeconomic status. A larger percentage of their neighbors than not struggle, facing a lack of resources or money or both. More recently, the process of transition has begun creating divergent goals for its multiple citizens, some of whom were now also more affluent young professionals and their families: gentrification or displacement, green space or development? It is a neighborhood with tensions searching for balance, but a neighborhood that loves the arts and loves its kids. Which explains the crowds on opening day. Multiple generations of families together, listening, singing, clapping, singing, winding in and out of the building’s whimsical, beautiful spaces.
The Performance Space in use. Wang Lu and MusicWorks Collective, “Fabric” Sept. 28, 2024 Courtesy of Community MusicWorks
Today, more than two decades later, there are 130 students, with staff musicians, a fellowship program for alumni, and more. A plan was formulated and the building’s goals were prioritized by listening to ideas that came from all directions: students, parents, a power board that worked hard and listened and wanted to make this Center real. Everyone trying to get it right, for the good. Ruth had waited to make this move, hesitant to proceed with a new building before he understood its purpose and its soul. He is a man who will quietly but inexorably assess until he understands.
Perhaps, now, the greatest challenge for CMW may be reinventing itself anew; taking the wisdom, experience and hope of its own past and finding a new path with its powerful original ideas: to create urban community through the making of music, to do purposeful work for others with practice and joy, to allow children to search for and find experiences that transform them into young artists and good people, and to give musicians a chance to give back to the local community as teachers, while continuing their own musical journeys.
Alexis Nelson was a student in the early 2000s, then an alumni fellow and is now the school’s Program Coordinator and Associate Resident Musician. She began at CMW in the storefront and played the opening concert in the graceful and elegant new building. She is also responsible for coordinating much of what visitors saw on opening day. She has a unique perspective: young student, musician, teacher and staff. But this is not really so surprising at CMW where people wear more than one hat with gusto.
Asked why Providence needs CMW, Alexis says: “All communities should have a central music space or a theater space where they feel welcome…. Providence is small but like many cities, it is segmented; so, it’s a really exciting thing to think that on this street where people pass each other by all the time, this space can be their place to stop, people can be curious about the building and what’s going on and then they can step inside and become a part of it.”
Carole Saltz is a transplant from NYC. Director Emerita of Teachers College Press at Columbia University, she retired after 35 years in 2019. She arrived in PVD four years ago and has been learning about her adopted city ever since. Once she accepted that she had failed retirement, she relaxed and happily began editing the PVD Eye. She also enjoys her grandsons,’ Leroy 6+ and Bruce 1+, husband Steve, daughter-in-law Jenny, and son Sam.
