Merit School Of Music Expands Into South Shore

Merit School of Music has expanded to providing musical education programming with Merit South Shore, which is located at Bryn Mawr Community Church. PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE SILVERMAN GROUP.
Merit School of Music has expanded to providing musical education programming with Merit South Shore, which is located at Bryn Mawr Community Church. PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE SILVERMAN GROUP.

Merit School Of Music Expands Into South Shore

By Tia Carol Jones

The Merit School of Music and Bryn Mawr Community Church have partnered to bring a music program that will benefit the church and the residents of South Shore, where the church is located. Merit South Shore will provide music programming to students ages 5 years old to14 years old at The Bryn Mawr Community Church, which is located at 7000 S. Jeffery Blvd.

The Merit School of Music began in 1979, with the goal to provide equal access to high -quality music education throughout the city to young people of all ages, backgrounds and experience. Earlier this month, Merit opened Merit Near North at St. Michael’s Parish Center, which is located at 458 W. Eugenie St.

Merit began offering classes at Bryn Mawr in June for a seven-week period this summer, with beginning and continuing violin classes and West African song and dance classes.

"We are excited to extend Merit's reach and impact through this partnership with Bryn Mawr Community Church," Adrienne Thompson, Vice President of Enrollment & Student Services of Merit School of Music, said in a release. "By combining our expertise in music education with the church's commitment to building community, we aim to make music education more accessible and foster a lifelong love of music among the youth of South Shore."

Bryn Mawr Community Church has been in existence for 109 years. The church was organized to provide Sunday school classes for children in the community by the women in the community, for the purpose of serving youth and children.

The Reverend JeVon Dion Moore has been the Pastor of Bryn Mawr Community Church for two and a half years. Moore said the church wanted to partner with Merit School of Music for Merit South Shore because the church has always had a component that connected with youth and children in the community. There is a theater inside the church and Moore was led to bring back a connection to arts programming for the church.

“When the opportunity came, by way of one of our leaders of the church, it seemed like a make sense move; to be able to connect the great work that Merit School of Music does with providing musical education to children in Chicago, as well as the idea of our church being a place for that to be hosted at,” Moore said.

Moore added that what really led him to move forward with the partnership was conversations with the Merit staff who said there was once a greater number of African American families whose children received music education through Merit. Over the years, however, the number declined, but there was a great desire to put the programming in a community where African American families lived.

Moore said he hopes with Merit providing music education classes at Bryn Mawr the next big breakout artist will come from one of the classes. He said he wants Merit South Shore to be a holistic space for healing for the children in the community.

“My hope is that this provides a safe place that adds value, that adds resilience, that adds hope, that adds a love, not just for music, but for life,” he said.

For more information about the Merit School of Music and to register for classes at Merit South Shore, visit www.meritmusic.org/bryn-mawr.

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