The melodies drifting from Community MusicWorks’ spacious building are more than just the sounds of young musicians practicing. They are the heartbeat of the neighborhood.
For 28 years, an after-school program run by the Providence, Rhode Island-based nonprofit has been reimagining what access to classical music education looks like. Community MusicWorks operates in areas of the state where K-12 students might not otherwise be able to afford to play stringed instruments. The program allows students to use instruments at no cost, offers mentorship, and hosts free concerts and workshops for the wider community to attend.
Eli Arrecis, 10, is starting his fourth season in CMW this fall. On the last day of summer camp in late July, he and his fellow campers are performing original songs for their parents, using violins, violas, cellos – and shakers they crafted out of cardboard.
Why We Wrote This
In an era when many schools’ arts budgets are dwindling, one nonprofit offers youths space to find purpose – through music lessons and practice.
Bobbing to the rhythm inside CMW’s auditorium, Eli’s parents, Shirley and Walter Arrecis, say they could not be happier. During the school year, Eli spends an hour nearly every day at group practice at CMW, and up to two hours for weekly individual lessons.
Since joining the program, Eli listens to music with a newfound appreciation and even picks up sheet music at home to read for fun. His parents hope to enroll Eli’s siblings in the program.
The proud parents share a love of music, and Eli’s father says his son’s orchestral playing “is like adding another genre for all of us to enjoy.”
“He’s even learning to play ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on viola,” Eli’s mother chimes in.
In an era when many schools’ arts budgets are dwindling, CMW offers something increasingly rare: a space where young people find joy, purpose, and camaraderie through music.
The music of change
CMW’s beginnings were modest. In 1997, while he was a senior at Brown University, Sebastian Ruth launched the program with a $10,000 grant and a vision for what he termed “musicianship working for positive social change.”
Mr. Ruth grew up in Ithaca, New York, and was first inspired by a high school violin teacher, who encouraged him to think about the social and spiritual impact of music on people. He and a small team rented a tiny storefront in Providence’s West End neighborhood – one of the city’s most diverse but also most economically disadvantaged areas – and began offering free violin lessons. For most working-class families here, private lessons were financially out of reach, and orchestral music was something encountered only from a distance.
Within a few years, CMW expanded to the building next door to accommodate its growing after-school program. Hundreds of students later, CMW has cemented its place in the neighborhood with a new state-of-the-art facility, which opened in September 2024. At its street-facing entrance, floor-to-ceiling windows and 6-foot-tall red letters that spell out the group’s initials offer a bold welcome to all who pass by.
The three-story building has a performing arts center, group practice rooms, an instrument repair workshop, and plenty of space for lessons. Financing for the $15 million project came from state and local funds, as well as individual donations.
AlexisMarie Nelson started her CMW journey in the sixth grade in 2006. It led her to study violin and viola and to eventually graduate from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee College of Music. Now a program coordinator at CMW, she says the nonprofit has evolved over the years, with the new facility allowing for large audiences to gather.
“We just have the possibility to have our entire community under one roof,” Ms. Nelson says. “The connections that we’re making are so important.”
“Feels like home”
Inside the building, teens such as Cesar Mendez shuffle in and out of lessons and jam sessions. They engage in soul-searching discussions about music and identity.
“This place feels like home,” says Mr. Mendez, an 18-year-old violist who joined the program nearly a decade ago. “It’s just full of life.”
But the real impact goes beyond mastering scales. “The arts aren’t just about skill-building or learning to play an instrument,” Mr. Ruth says. “It’s a different way of being with other people.”
“Many communities, particularly urban communities, are just doing a disservice to the children by not having adequate opportunities to learn the arts,” he adds.
Learning music is more than an elective activity, notes Cecil Adderley, chair of music education at Berklee College of Music and president of the National Association for Music Education. “It’s a way to model how to excel at something artistic.”
Even if students never go pro, he adds, they’re using their creativity as well as fostering collaboration and a sense of belonging. “You’re learning not just how to be a musician – but how to be a better neighbor.”
CMW nurtures a feeling of connection as well as curiosity and leadership.
“A lot of the time, we talk just so we don’t feel alone in the questions we have,” says Mr. Mendez, who will study biomedical engineering at the University of Rhode Island this fall.
