Our mission is to provide the extraordinary benefits of music to all in our community. We believe in the inherent power of music to provide personal enrichment, creative expression, lifelong learning, cultural appreciation, and joy for everyone. • Excellence - We strive to provide leadership and innovation in music education, encompassing high standards, best teaching practices and respect for individual differences. We seek to be a place where students of all ages and abilities grow through music and have the opportunity to develop their skills and talents to their greatest potential. • Access – Guided by our commitment to inclusiveness, we believe that financial limitations or differing ability should never be a barrier to learning. We take our programs into the community as necessary to ensure this. • Community – we bring people together through musical collaboration, bridging differences, forging connections, and celebrating musical and cultural diversity.

The Conservatory is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music and is required to meet its high standards for our programs, faculty, staff, fiscal management, facilities, equipment, and board/executive leadership. Accreditation is evaluated very ten years through a self-study report and peer review site visit. The Conservatory crafts a Strategic Plan every 3-5 years, the most recent completed in June, 2017. Our need-based Scholarship Program and our Music Therapy Institute ensure access for financially deserving students and students with disabilities. Healing Our Heroes provides tuition-free music therapy service for military veterans. The Conservatory community includes an active Parent Association, Adult Student Association, Teen Volunteer Corps, and Faculty Advisory Council. We partner with numerous organizations who use our facilities for concerts, classes and events. It is estimated that 10,000 people come to our building each year for performances and events.

The Conservatory has an 89-year history of high quality programs, commitment to serving the community, and sound fiscal management. We engage in ongoing evaluation to stay ahead of the curve on important new trends in the field of music education. We have a dedicated professional staff with expertise in program development, management, fundraising, finance and administration. We have a faculty of 84 talented professional musicians and educators. Passionate about the mission, our board is comprised of professionals in law, finance, real estate, management and other key areas. We are located in a beautiful facility designed for music instruction and performance, centrally located in the county with access to major highways and public transportation. The building incorporates facilities for a compatible nonprofit dance school and volunteer chorus which share our space, creating a family-friendly multi-arts campus.

For our Strategic Plan, we create a yearly Implementation Plan, and evaluate our progress annually. We carefully track our enrollment, including student demographics, scholarship recipients, and numbers in each program. We conduct annual focus groups and surveys of our parents, adult students, teen students, and faculty. We monitor our income and operating expenses, establishing annual goals for tuition, contract services for outreach programs, and fundraising, and checking actuals against projections on a monthly basis. Revenue and expense for each mission-based program are also evaluated. We prepare biannual updates on each mission-based program to send to supporters. In 2012, we initiated reserve funds for operations and facilities which we are building up with quarterly contributions.

We’ve grown the Scholarship Program by 35% since 2014 to meet increased community need. The Music Therapy program has grown by 50% since 2008. Healing Our Heroes, a tuition-free music therapy program for military veterans initiated in 2013, has gained national attention and was presented at Disabled American Veterans National Convention in Reno NV in July, 2018. A documentary film is currently being made about the program. In 2017 the National Endowment for the Arts funded creation of a music-themed public mural on an exterior wall of our building. Coming in 2020 is construction of a Recording Studio, Digital Piano Lab, new Percussion Studio, and additional Rehearsal Studio and Music Therapy studio in our building, funded by a $500,000 challenge grant from NY State Regional Economic Development Corp. and its required $1:1 match. For the first time, high school students will have access to a precollege training program in sound engineering and studio composition.