The Rainey Institute recently moved a few doors down on East 55th from where it has been providing arts instruction for urban youth since the 1960s. The move has proven to be even more significant than those involved with the organization could have imagined. Since opening the 25,000-square-foot facility in the Hough neighborhood, Rainey has discovered new opportunities to bring arts offerings to its students.

One of the most significant of these is the selection of Rainey to host an intensive music program that began several years ago in Venezuela and has made its way around the world.

Lee Lazar, executive director of the Insitute, says that Rainey will be the home of a new El Sistema USA program. El Sistema started in Venezuela in the 1980s to empower disadvantaged youth through ensemble music. El Sistema USA brings this opportunity to communities around the United States.

Cleveland Orchestra violinist Isabel Trautwein recently received a one-year fellowship to study the concepts of El Sistema. After touring the new Rainey facilities, Trautwein and others involved with the project decided it would be an ideal location for the program.

Students selected for the El Sistema USA program take part in an intensive, five-day-a-week musical workshop. After several months in the program, which will begin sometime this year, the students will have the opportunity to perform at Severance Hall.

Lazar credits Rainey's new music studios, sound-proof private lesson rooms and state-of-the-art theater as being a large part of what attracted Trautwein and El Sistema to Rainey. "It's all because of the building," he says.

SOURCE: Rainey Institute
WRITER: Diane DiPiero