CHICAGO — The narrow hallway of the People's Music School was cluttered with musical instruments, but it didn't slow the children noisily making their way to lessons.
The scene, a blend of serious music study and youthful laughter, was a longtime dream of Rita Simo, who left an impoverished upbringing in the Dominican Republic for the Juilliard School, became a concert pianist — and then a nun — and eventually opened the school in 1976.
She believed high quality, classical music instruction should be available to everyone, regardless of economic status.
"If you have a dream and don't work at it, what good is the dream," Simo said as she sat in a room crammed with a battered grand piano and drum set donated by supporters.
The school, in Chicago's gritty Uptown neighborhood, provides tuition-free music instruction to anyone. Each semester, hundreds of people like Maria Ugarta stand in line for hours to grab one of about 350 slots for themselves or their children.
While a half-hour violin lesson often costs at least $40 elsewhere, those attending the school pay only a $15 registration fee.
Ugarta registered her 6-year-old son, Lautaro, in a guitar class after seeing him strumming an imaginary instrument as he roamed the house.
"He loves the school," Ugarta said. "And I like its structure and its seriousness."
Simo, now retired, is reaping honors for her work. Last week, she was presented the Montblanc de la Culture Award, created by the fountain pen maker to honor those who enhance the arts. Previous honorees include writer Susan Sontag and hip-hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons.
The school's roots are in Simo's childhood in San Francisco de Macoris, where every Sunday she would listen to band music in a park. At 4, she was pecking out tunes on an aunt's piano. The following year, she was studying piano at the National Conservatory.
Simo was 18 when she moved to New York to continue her music studies on scholarship at Juilliard at time when pianist Van Cliburn and Peter Schickele of P.D.Q. Bach fame were there.
"I remember thinking at the time, 'Wow! What am I doing here?' " said the diminutive, gray-haired Simo, who occasionally colors her conversation with mild profanities. " 'I was the best in the Dominican Republic. Here, I'm a nobody.' "
After graduating, she hired an agent and briefly became a concert pianist, an experience she described as lonely. She said it was during a performance in Harlem that she realized the poor in this country were being deprived of classical music training, and her desire to open a free music school crystalized.
She joined the Sinsinawa Dominican religious order at 24, believing the church would help her establish a music school in the inner city.
"They told me that was no reason to become a nun," she said. "But they accepted me."
She became Sister Maria Ana, earned a doctorate at Boston University, and eventually taught music at Rosary College (now Dominican University) outside Chicago. But after years of seeing her dream deferred she left the order with $65 and again became Rita Simo.
In Uptown, a Chicago neighborhood of people from all corners of the globe, a third of which were recent immigrants, she borrowed money from friends, rented a vacant beauty parlor and convinced the pastor of a Catholic church to give her a piano.
She put up a sign — "Free piano lessons for paint" — that attracted 40 people.
Simo has always been a passionate advocate of her school, despite early skepticism from family and friends. She called storage facilities in search of abandoned pianos, lobbied musicians to teach for free, and solicited foundations to finance the school's growth.
She recalled those early years as ones of struggle as she scrubbed bathrooms and ran activities at a senior center to support herself. Through it all, she had time to marry.
"It was not easy," she said. "Now, looking back, it's funny. But then it was hard, a lot of tears."
In 1995, the school moved into a new $1.5 million, two-story building. It now has 10 practice rooms, a library, a performance hall, and a rooftop recital area.
The students are taught music theory and how to play an instrument by 32 part-time teachers of piano, strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion and voice. The teachers get little pay, but many, like drummer Dominique Louis, have taught there for years. A native of Haiti, Louis called music a gift that he wants to give away.
Simo estimates 4,000 students have benefited from the school and its lessons.
Despite the lack of tuition, the students have to meet standards, including practicing and participating in fundraisers. Adults and the parents of children volunteer two hours a month, doing everything from stuffing envelopes to painting walls.
The school is now led by Mary Ellen McGarry, who was head of the theater department at the Chicago Academy of the Arts when she bumped into Simo at church.
"I had met her, but she meets a lot of people, so I was pretty shocked when she came up to me after the service and said I should take her place," McGarry recalled. "When I walked in the door, I knew I wanted to be here."
---
