By Elizabeth Cloutman
 Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier |
“Arts for All” is not just a motto for the Community School of Music and the Arts in Mountain View. It’s also a mission statement, according to Evy Schiffman, CMSA’s communications director.
“We think of our agency as providing arts for all - regardless of age or (skill) level, background or financial capabilities,” Schiffman said. “That was the vision of our founders (in 1968) and that is the vision we live by today.”
CSMA has a faculty of 75 musicians and educators, as well as guest artists, who each year instruct 20,000 people- preschool through adults - at area elementary schools and at its own facilities. The school also offers free concerts and art exhibits through its community outreach program.
In keeping with its philosophy of arts for all, CSMA offers scholarships, tuition assistance and work-study programs to students who need financial help. This week, the school will hold “There’s No Place like Home,” this year’s fund-raiser for its financial aid program, which provides about $125,000 annually in scholarships and tuition assistance. The benefit dinner is scheduled 6 - 10 p.m., Friday, at the Crowne Plaza Cabana Hotel in Palo Alto.
Contracting with public and private elementary schools from Menlo Park to San Jose, including Mountain View and Los Altos schools, CSMA offers a sequential Arts-in-the-Schools programs, Music in Action and Arts in Action to 10,000 students during the school year. The arts school also provides ‘Tween Time, free after-school, drop-in arts classes for students at Crittenden and Graham middle schools. This program is funded by CSMA and the city of Mountain View, with in-kind support from the Mountain View and Whisman school districts.
CSMA also offers music and arts classes as well as individual music lessons for students of all ages, preschool to senior citizens, as well as school-break and summer arts and music camps, at its various campus sites. Classes range from Adventures in Music for children, ages 18 months to 4 years and their parents, to World Harmony chorus for all ages. There are also drawing, sculpting, painting, ceramics, dance, acting and even video-making camps for students, grades K-8.
While tuition is charged for these classes, lessons and camps, financial aid is available in the forms of tuition assistance for students and work-study programs for adults, as well as merit scholarships awarded to students showing outstanding talent and commitment.
The school also provides free concerts by professionals throughout the year. The Family Concert Series, funded by Silicon Graphics Inc., offers a multicultural concert monthly on Sunday afternoons at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. In addition, CSMA offers Concerts in Conversation, in which young artists from Stanford Lively Arts present excerpts from their programs, and discuss their careers and ideas about music in an informal setting. The arts school also provides student and faculty performances and art exhibits, as well as free opportunities to enjoy the arts at local libraries, senior centers, hospitals, fairs and festivals.
CSMA is currently working with the city of Mountain View as it develops plans to build a new 25,000 square-foot facility on San Antonio Circle as a permanent home. School officials are hoping the building will be completed by 2003.
Schiffman said she believes the arts school helps not only to educate future artists and musicians, but also to create future concertgoers, museum visitors and patrons of the arts.
The “There’s No Place like Home” benefit features musical performances, headlined by the Taylor Eigsti trio; a student/faculty art exhibit; auction and gourmet dinner. Tickets are $100 per person.
For more information, call 961-0342, ext. 314.
