Community MusicWorks Breaks Ground on the Community MusicWorks Center

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Liz Cox, Director of Communications
lcox@communitymusicworks.org

October 17, 2022

Community MusicWorks Breaks Ground on the Community MusicWorks Center

Set to open in Fall 2023, the Community MusicWorks Center will be a home for CMW’s music performance
series and education programs, and a center for the broader community to connect and engage in creative opportunities.

Providence, RI – Providence music organization Community MusicWorks (CMW), now in its 26th
Season, will break ground on its new home, the Community MusicWorks Center, with an informal
coffee toast on Thursday, November 3rd. The gathering will take place at 10:30AM at 1326
Westminster St., the site of this innovative new building.

Located just a block from CMW’s current location, the Community MusicWorks Center will be a
welcoming gathering place in the heart of Providence’s West End that embodies CMW’s mission
and values. It will serve as an anchor in the community where students, families, audiences, and
neighbors can comfortably engage with a remarkable array of cultural activities.
“At CMW, we seek to create cohesive urban community through music education and
performance. That community– our students and their families, our neighbors and friends,
musicians and audience members– comes together through shared musical experiences. Now
those shared experiences can all take place under one roof in the Community MusicWorks
Center,” said CMW’s Founder and Artistic Director Sebastian Ruth. “The new Center is for all of
us. It is a place for neighbors to engage in music and community and imagine new possibilities for
learning, for performing, and for inspiration.

The building design, led by 3six0 Architects, will feature a central 100-seat performance space
and ground-floor caféthat will serve as a community gathering area. The second-floor classrooms
and practice spaces will be equipped with acoustic treatments and technology. The building will
feature a fully equipped media lab, space for a music library holding CMW’s collection of 4,000
scores and teaching resources, as well as space for administrative operations.

The Community MusicWorks Center’s design is keenly focused with an eye toward sustainability.
Sustainability in this project is understood through multiple lenses: on the community level, on a
financial level, and on an environmental level. Environmentally, the building will be a pioneering,
carbon-sequestering wood structure, built with cross-laminated timber floors (CLT) and wooden glue-laminated beams and columns. Other ecological strategies include siting and orientation—taking advantage of the southern exposure for solar gain, natural lighting, and a thermally efficient building envelope. The life cycle, environmental, and health risks of all materials used in the new building are guiding the selection of building materials and finishes, including non-toxic, mineral-based insulation and paints.

The Community MusicWorks Center is made possible by an ongoing $15M capital campaign. Liz
Chace, who serves as Campaign Co-Chair along with fellow co-chairs Doris De Los Santos and
David Bourns, speaks to the campaign’s breadth of community support. “We have been
overwhelmed by the generosity of our donors. Clearly CMW’s mission resonates deeply with a
public who understands its impact, and with just under $2M left to raise until reaching our $15M
goal, we look forward to finishing this campaign, and welcoming the public into this new home for
music and community.” Said Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza, “We are eternally grateful that CMW
exists, that CMW is firmly rooted in our community, and that Community MusicWorks is going to
grow and build an institution that will be around for my kids, and my kids’ kids...long, long into the
future.”

About Community MusicWorks
Community MusicWorks (CMW) is a community-based non-profit based in the West End of
Providence. CMW hosts the permanent residency of a professional music ensemble that teaches
and performs throughout the region. Approximately 150 young people living in the Southside,
West End, Olneyville, and Mt. Pleasant neighborhoods participate in free music lessons,
workshops, ensembles, and social justice programs.
CMW, which just completed its 25th season, has been nationally recognized for its model of community-based musicianship and education, including press in the New Yorker magazine and the Christian Science Monitor, features on NPR and PBS Newshour, an inaugural Lewis Prize for Music Accelerator Award, a National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from First Lady Michelle Obama, and a MacArthur Fellowship for the organization’s founder, Sebastian Ruth.

Alumni from CMW have gone on to leadership positions in community organizations in
Providence and elsewhere, and many have returned to CMW as staff members, mentors,
assistant teachers, and now as fellows in a special leadership fellowship program created
specifically for alumni. The Community MusicWorks Center seeks to be a gateway to opportunities for youth, a catalyst for equitable community development, a home to intimate and innovative musical conversation,
and a welcoming space for everyone to envision powerful new futures through music.

Learn more about Community MusicWorks:
https://communitymusicworks.org