Mission

Third Street Music School Settlement, the nation's oldest community music school, was founded in 1894 by Emilie Wagner, who believed that music could offer the impoverished immigrants of New York's Lower East Side some respite from their daily struggles. Today, more than a century later, Third Street serves more than 3,500 students each year both at the School and through its MILES (Music Instruction on the Lower East Side) Program in the public schools, where it reaches a sizeable immigrant population and hundreds of children who lack affordable options for quality training in the arts. A generous program of tuition assistance, scholarships and program subsidies benefits three-quarters of all students served.