History/Mission/Vision

Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra & Music School/Carter Center

The Rhode Island Philharmonic seeks to encourage lifelong involvement with music by offering outstanding and accessible symphonic performances and by providing high quality, comprehensive music education.

Music School in 25th year

Now in its 25th year, the Music School was founded by Alan Fox, after moving to Rhode Island and discovering that this state was the only one in the country without a community music school. He assembled a group of interested people and together they opened the school that September. Alan left the school in 1997, and Kathy Czerny became the executive director, eventually facilitating the merge with the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra in 2001.

The Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School offers music education programs and performance opportunities to people of all ages, incomes and ability levels. We are currently the only comprehensive, non-profit community music school in Rhode Island and engage approximately 1,500 students statewide on a weekly basis with an additional 13,000 students through periodic partnerships, residencies, education concerts and in-school performances.

In December 2006, the Philharmonic Music School moved into its permanent home on Waterman Avenue in East Providence. This facility, also housing the administrative offices, is now the Carter Center for Music Education & Performance which opened in the fall of 2008, the only facility of its kind in Rhode Island. This Center has dramatically increased our ability to provide high quality, comprehensive and accessible music education to thousands of students through our scholarship and community partnership arrangements. This fall we added a state-of-the art 18-station electronic keyboard lab which opens up new exciting opportunities for our students. Our students come from virtually every community in the state, nearby Massachusetts and Connecticut.

The Philharmonic Music School does not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion age or handicap. We are a member of the 230-school National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts.