Settlement Music School celebrates 100 years

Where do parents of future singers, oboists, cellists, saxophonists, clarinetists, guitarists, pianists and harpists turn when the financial going gets tough?

To the school that has offered musical training - with financial aid and scholarships - since 1908; the school with 15,000 students at any given time who may range in age from 3 to 103 and who hail from zip codes that start in South Philadelphia and stretch to West Philly, the Northeast, Germantown, Jenkintown and across the river to Camden; the school whose roster of accomplished graduates features Albert Einstein, Mario Lanza, Frank Rizzo, Kevin Eubanks, and those fabulous Bacon brothers, Kevin and Michael.

This week, as it celebrates its centennial year, Settlement Music School is playing host to the annual national Conference for Community Arts Education, which will bring to Philadelphia more than 500 community arts education leaders from 350 organizations in 45 states, Canada and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Not surprisingly, strategies for coping with increasing enrollments in these financially strapped times leads the agenda.

"In recessionary times, enrollment at Settlement actually goes up, as 40 percent of our students receive financial assistance," said Robert Capanna, Settlement's longtime executive director.

Capanna, who has announced plans to retire at the end of next year, will be honored Saturday at the conference for his 32 years of service to Settlement. A composer and a native of Camden, he is credited with greatly enlarging the school's scope and size, doubling its presence from three to six locations, including one in his home city.

Capanna says community arts education agencies nationwide are feeling the same crunch: As the economy slows, public and private school budgets are slashed; federal, state and personal deficits loom large; and requests for scholarships rise.

"Now it's more important than ever to come together and share strategies for preserving accessible arts education in our communities," said Joyce Bonomini, who will represent the Hoffman Performing Arts Institute in Clearwater, Fla., when the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts meets at the Hyatt Regency Hotel at Penn's Landing today through Saturday.

Settlement was an early member of the National Guild and it remains the largest school of its type in the United States.

Although founded primarily for the benefit of school-age children, Settlement quickly developed a conservatory division that offered preprofessional training and was of sufficient stature to serve as the nucleus of the Curtis Institute of Music when Curtis was established in 1924.

With 325 faculty and staff, Settlement is the largest employer of musicians in the tristate region, and it feeds into the area a wealth of singers, instrumentalists and teachers as well as arts administrators.

To celebrate its centennial, the school has compiled a list of 100 people whose lives were shaped by their Settlement experiences. In addition to an array of citizens from all walks of life and many distinguished performers in all genres of music, the list includes a Nobel laureate, two MacArthur Fellows, four Pulitzer Prize winners, a Fulbright scholar, two Academy Award winners, three Grammy award nominees, an Emmy award winner and a Tony award nominee.

Robert Capanna, Settlement Music School's outgoing executive director, will speak as part of the Adult Chamber Players Lecture Series at 11:30 a.m. Nov. 12 at the Field Recital Hall in Settlement's Mary Louis Curtis Branch, 416 Queen St. Admission is free. RSVP to Lisa Ertl at 215-320-2684 or

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