April 19, 2021
Dear BMS family and friends,
I am writing to update you on our progress toward building a sustainable and inspiring future for the Brooklyn Music School and to let you know of some recent events and actions the Board of Trustees has taken toward this end.
1. New BMS Community Music and Performing Arts Center. Plans to build a new music and performing arts center are well under way. It is a once-in-a-lifetime, transformative opportunity for BMS. The new center will help us reach more people and develop our programming across the board, more than doubling the instructional space available for group music and dance classes and private lessons, among other programming. However, the process for development is a complex one and involves may layers of governmental approval. We have already obtained permission to go forward from the Landmarks Preservation Commission and our partner, Gotham Organization, is now in the process of obtaining permits from the city to begin construction.
2. New Board Members. We are excited to announce the election of three new members to the Board of Trustees: two of whom are parents of students now studying at BMS or are students themselves. They are Maria Pham, Daniela Bauer and Angela Howard. Each brings a variety of perspectives, personal experience and professional background to BMS. Their bios will soon be posted on the BMS website.
3. A Sustainable Musical Future. The planned center promises so many wonderful things for the BMS community. First, for the student experience, the possibilities are unlimited in a new state-of-the-art, technologically advanced facility that will include a new digital recording studio, modern sound-proofed private lesson space and group classrooms, and new performance spaces. Then, we will no longer have to devote precious tuition dollars toward the constant mending of the 112-year old existing home. Those funds will be better spent on programming, faculty salaries, performances, and even student concert tours. The new center will open up space for needed capital improvements to the old building and will immediately add over $12 million in value to BMS as an institution, inviting greater foundation support and endowments that will further enable us to expand our offerings and improve the quality of education and performances we offer.
4. Your Support. While Gotham Development is experienced in moving projects through the approval process, your active and vocal support will make things that much smoother. I am asking that you reach out to me at the address below to find out ways you can help make the new BMS Community Music and Performing Arts Center a reality. And, while it is too soon for work on the physical design of the new space, once we have obtained the necessary approvals, the developers will actively seek input on design from the BMS community and the surrounding community. BMS will create a committee of BMS staff/faculty, families, and trustees to share feedback with architects and engineers, so please stay tuned.
Only by working together can we keep BMS thriving for the next hundred years.
Shelby D. Green
Chair of the BMS Board of Trustees
sgreenbms@gmail.com