Thank you for learning with us and supporting Church Street School this year. View photos from our 25th Anniversary below! And support your community school for the arts by making a tax deductible donation today.
Highlights from Our 
25th Anniversary Year
SATURDAY, APRIL 25 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM | GREENWICH STREET NORTH OF CHAMBERS STREET
Lights. Camera… Family Festival! Come downtown and spend the day in our neighborhood with “on location” filmmaking activities, live Broadway performances, video games, arts and crafts, film screenings, community merchants and restaurants, cooking demonstrations, storytelling, and so much more. All fun and FREE!
OPEN ART 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM | Hubert & Greenwich Street
25th ANNIVERSARY & “SPECIAL PERFORMANCE” Lisa Ecklund-Flores 2:00 PM | Main Stage
STUDENT PERFORMANCES 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM | Hubert Street
Also at BOOKTOPIA FAIRS 10% of proceeds goes to benefit Church Street School
Come & Show your support!
Come see performances by Church Street School student’s Megan Doyle, Alejandro Vilarrasa Corriero, Stella Rose, Sklias-Gahan, Civics, Daniel Wing, Bailey Jones, Leyla Blue, and Noelani Wing. $8 admission, which includes one drink. This is an all ages show.
As I stood looking at an exhibit of toddler art on the wall of my school one day, the parent standing next to me said, “This rivals an installation at the Museum of Modern Art”. It was true; all of the elements of form color and texture were there, and not the work of a seasoned and acclaimed artists of our time, but rather created unselfconsciously by two year old children.
This is a testament to the creative spirit of all human beings, which can be seen most clearly in the creative prowess of a young child. The natural qualities of childhood are the building blocks of this creativity – their physicality, their openness, their present-ness, their insatiable curiosity. Read more →
At a recent get-together of parents, teachers, and community members interested in supporting the arts, we had a dynamic discussion about the importance of creativity in child development. Those of us from Church Street School for Music and Art stressed the three key reasons for the importance of creativity in our music and art classes – to introduce students to artistic process, to build their self-awareness and self-confidence, and to help them find their unique artistic voice.
All of those in attendance lamented the current state of education that emphasizes didactic approaches, memorization and test performance. We all agreed that such traditional approaches to education are more a source of anxiety for kids than of learning. We pondered together how to move the current culture of education forward, from the darkness of a system that focuses on performance and competition, into the light of a future where creativity and new ideas are prized. I think parents everywhere are pondering these same things. Read more →
Young children are creative dynamos. They surpass adults in their openness to possibility and their willingness to explore without fear. If you give toddlers a drum they immediately create rhythms on it; if you give them paint and a brush they instantaneously drip and rub and mix. In my experience, when most adults sit down in the same kind of open-ended situation, they worry about what they are supposed to do.
Toddlers and preschoolers do not share that worry. They are unmistakably ‘in the moment’. They don’t yet have a firm understanding of the past or the future. While this may present challenges for parenting, it uniquely situates the child for exploration of art and music. As Picasso said “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” Read more →
Ever since researchers discovered that fetuses respond to sound in the sixth month of pregnancy, there have been those in the baby biz that have tried to capitalize on this information. New parents have been manipulated to feel that they need to engage in some sort of special stimulation of their unborn child to build a ‘better’ baby. Or once born, parents feel compelled to buy special CDs and music videos that purport to make their baby smarter. And through my experience as a music educator I know that many parents worry if their child doesn’t start playing an instrument at three years old they will somehow fail to develop to their full potential. Nothing could be further from the truth. Read more →
Tuesday, March 3
7 pm – 11 pm
Tribeca Rooftop
2 Desbrosses Street
Harvey Keitel and Daphna Kastner, Artist Chairs
Danielle Elder, Event Chair
Honoring
Michael Dorf, CEO and Founder, City Winery
Honorable Margaret Chin, New York City Council Member District 1
Special performance by KT Tunstall
cocktails . . . dinner . . . silent auction . . . musical performances . . . dancing . . . support the arts . . .
Click here to learn how you can purchase a table or become a sponsor of this event .
Click here to Donate an auction item to this event.
SuperStar Table $20,000
Listing & verbal mention, table for 10 w/ prime stage positioning.
Platinum Rock Star tabLe $10,000
Listing & verbal mention, table for 10 w/ prime seating.
Gold Rock Star tabLe $5,000
Listing & verbal mention, table for 10.
Silver rock star table $3,000
Listing & verbal mention, table for 10.
Rock Star duet $1000
Listing & verbal mention, 2 tickets to event.
Couple Admission $500
Single Admission $250
Please call 212.571.7290 to purchase tickets
Saturday, February 7th 10am-4pm at 74 Warren St.
A free day of art and music fun for the whole family Read more →
Caili O’Doherty is one of a handful of exciting new teachers joining the Church Street School faculty this fall. In the following interview she discusses her approach to teaching piano, as well as her own musical development and blossoming career as one of New York’s most promising young pianists.
Toby Wine (TW): Talk a little about your philosophy and methods as a teacher.
Caili O’Doherty (CO): My approach comes from first, listening to music. Exposing kids to different types of music, then moving on to singing – being able to sing what they hear and connecting what they sing with what they can play on the piano. I teach music as a language, and kids understand that as a way of learning to improvise, and to improve. I ask them if they speak another language, and many of the kids at Church Street do. I’ll ask them “how do you learn?” and they’ll say “my mom speaks to me in French.” Music is the same; you have to listen to it to be able to play it and you have to practice and listen a lot to get better and to build vocabulary. I think it helps to reduce frustration at not being able to play everything right away, when I can get them to think about it that way. I relate playing the piano to vocal qualities, to speaking and communication, which is its purpose in my opinion. Read more →
