The Shedd Institute's Community Music School offers classes and private lessons for all ages in a wide range of musical instruments and styles. The school also offers summer music camps, a school music enrichment assembly program, and special workshops associated with select Shedd concerts.

The Shedd Community Music School offers need-based financial aid for youth and adult students alike, thanks to the generosity of donors and corporate sponsors, so that cost is not a barrier to learning music. Confidential financial aid applicaiton forms can be downloaded online from our eDocument archive or picked up at the Registrar's office. Submit the appropriate form for either a class or private lessons to the Registar. Get financial aid forms from our eDocument archive here.

Composers, lyricists, musicians and performers. Most people remember their favorite composers and singers, but not the people whose words helped make those beloved songs memorable. The Shedd champions lyricists as much as we do the composers and performers who helped create “the American Songbook”. E.Y. “Yip” Harburg (1896-1981), one of our absolute favorite lyricists, for instance, wrote what may be the most memorable of all musical theatre songs, “Over the Rainbow”, along with many more. Yet few people recognize his name. The Shedd Community Music School is proud to bring that name to the forefront in the name of our musical theatre program, The E. Y. Harburg Academy for Musical Theatre... continued...

The Shedd Institute's mission is "to serve as a cultural center where people find and nurture community through discovery, creation, and celebration.” Our Community Music School reflects this mission in practice by encouraging experimentation (with instruments, instructors, musical styles) and the joy of making personal connections; responding to inquiry and supporting collaborations; and eliminating the stultifying “pressure of excellence” when celebrating student learning.