Music School Celebrates 50 Years

News

Bloomingdale School of Music, a nonprofit center for teaching students of all ages, is staging a free concert to commemorate its golden jubilee anniversary

By Patrick Donachie

Upper West Side The Bloomingdale School of Music is getting ready to play “Happy Birthday” – to itself.

Last summer, soon after Erika Floreska was appointed executive director of the school on West 108th Street, she asked her staff to go through the paper archives in the attic. One of the school’s staff made a surprising find: a poster that announced the opening registration date for the school’s very first lessons.

“It said, ‘Registration, Nov. 7,’ ” Floreska said. “We only knew it was the fall of 1964. We have a birthday. We actually have a date!”

Floreska and her staff saw the discovery as an opportunity. “We’ve got to throw a birthday concert, so we decided to throw a party where we first started,” she said.

On Saturday, Nov. 8, Bloomingdale School of Music will return to its original location at the West End Presbyterian Church on West 105th Street for a concert celebrating its 50 years on the Upper West Side. Students, alumni and staff will take part in the concert that will celebrate both the school’s history and future.

Bloomingdale began as a resource for private lessons after school and on weekends. Lessons were only 50 cents. The school resided at the church until 1972, when it moved to its current home in a brownstone on 108th Street, between Broadway and Riverside.

Floreska noted that the school had been a cultural touchstone in the community ever since public school authorities began cutting back music education in the ’70s.

“Classes of kids would come from their public schools during class time,” she said. “They’d take their lessons with our teachers and go back to school.”

The emphasis on community is a constant at Bloomingdale, and several of the staff are alumni of the school. Brandon Vasquez, who was a student in 1993, has worked full-time for the school since 2001. He said, “People tell me this is a special place. This is like a second home.”

Preparing for the birthday concert is not without challenges; the staff is in a sprint to ensure they are ready on time. “It’s an ‘all hands on deck’ thing,” Vasquez said.

Vasquez has to make sure all the equipment makes it to the church, and he’ll also be the stage manager for the show. “Getting the performers, the venue, and getting the word out; it’s very short notice,” he said.

On a recent afternoon, in a room in the brownstone’s basement that doubles as a practice space, the children’s preparatory orchestra class of eight violinists and one cellist took tentative stabs at a piece they’ll be playing at the concert.

Asked for one word to describe the school, kids responded that Bloomingdale was “ecstatic,” “exciting,” and – from the kid who couldn’t stick to just one word – “amazingly amazing.”

A girl named Ariel said that she took up the violin after she “got tired of playing piano.” Another student said, “My dad tricked me into thinking it was easy.”

The staff has curated the concert’s repertoire, and several of the selections pay tribute to titans from the school’s past. David Greer, the Bloomingdale School’s founder, was also the organist at West End Presbyterian, and a song will be played on the church organ in his honor.

Brandon Vasquez said “Danny Boy,” the traditional Celtic hymn, will be played in memory of Lawrence Davis, who died last November after 22 years as the school’s executive director. It was his favorite song.

“His death was sudden, and could have thrown the community into a turmoil,” Davis’ successor, Erika Floreska, noted. “But the community came together. The staff, board and faculty came together and reinvigorated a commitment to keeping Bloomingdale active and present.”

Floreska views the concert as an opportunity to market the school to the Upper West Side. “We want to re-announce and reconnect ourselves to the community,” she said. “We have seats to fill.”