In Review

The Eastman Community Music School opened its doors in 1921, the same year as the Eastman School of Music.

For nearly a century, the school has offered music lessons, ensembles, classes, and workshops to students of all ages, backgrounds, and talent levels. It serves around 1,800 students each year, ranging in age from four months to 92 years.

The school occupies the third and fourth floors of Eastman’s Messinger Hall, which last year completed a $2.8 million renovation, the most extensive in its history. The project was funded in large part by Eastman School of Music National Council member Karen Rettner and her husband, University Trustee Ronald Rettner.

“The feeling of community is what’s really what’s most apparent to me,” says Petar Kodzas ’99E (DMA), associate dean and director of the school. “When I was teaching in this building, others were scattered at our other buildings. We knew we belonged to the same institution but never felt it. Now, we are one community. It feels like a different school.”

Kodzas was named associate dean and director of the Eastman Community Music School in 2017 after teaching classical guitar at the school for two decades.

What is the mission of the Eastman Community Music School?

For the first 20 years or longer, the school was mainly for people who were interested in careers in music. It had more demanding audition requirements and a much smaller enrollment. As society realized that music was not just for professional musicians, that it was great for humankind in general, the mission changed from training young musicians to involving the community at any level and any age. That still holds true today. It doesn’t matter what your ability is. Music is for anyone and everyone.

What’s something the average person might be surprised to learn about the school?

People are shocked to learn a student can start at four months old, or that anyone can come here. Somewhere in the Rochester DNA, there’s this vision that you don’t come to Eastman unless you’re a college student or a world-class musician. But the community music school is for anybody who loves music. The Eastman School of Music stands for excellence. So does the Eastman Community Music School, but it has different criteria. A four-year-old student probably isn’t going to be performing in Kilbourn Hall with an orchestra, but everyone deserves an opportunity to study music, and excellence is evident regardless of age.

The school has a strong commitment to outreach programs such as Pathways, Horizons, and ROCMusic. How do those programs enrich what the school already has to offer?

We have expertise and knowledge, and our goal is to support music in schools, community orchestras, and amateur groups in any way that we can. We’re not an island. Some of our teachers work in public schools or perform in the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and we need to support their orchestras. Music always seems to go first when there are budget cuts. We need to be public advocates for school programs and the 40-plus amateur orchestras in our town.

How has the school stood the test of time?

A recent article said Rochester is per capita the second city in the US for musicians. It’s no surprise. We started a Rochester Music Alliance to bring together local amateur music groups and had 37 representatives from different groups at the first meeting. We have choruses, bands, orchestra, fire department bands, ethnic groups, and people who just play music at home.

What’s your primary goal for the future?

My goal is to inspire the entire community in involving more students at an early age, starting from age four all the way through fourth grade, and prepare them to get involved in school orchestras. If we can get them learning the basics early, it will make music fun and as much a part of their life as reading.