Park Slope music school adds second campus with a music therapy institute
BKCM Prospect Park West doubles the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music's capacity and gives its music therapy work a dedicated home funded in part by The Joel Foundation.
A ribbon-cutting on Oct. 9 opened BKCM Prospect Park West, a second campus for the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music that doubles how many clients, students and musicians it can serve.
The address is One Prospect Park West, by Grand Army Plaza. That puts it four blocks from 58 Seventh Ave., the Park Slope building where the conservatory began 129 years ago. Officials at the ceremony, held in the Joel Foundation Concert Hall, included Borough President Antonio Reynoso, Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander and state Sens. Andrew Gounardes and Jabari Brisport.
Inside the new Park Slope music campus
The 12,500-square-foot building holds a community space, a performance hall measuring 1,400 square feet and 13 studios built to be soundproof and acoustically tuned. Every part of it is ADA-accessible and sensory-friendly. Money for the $17.8 million project came from dozens of individual donors, government partners at the city, state and federal levels, and the Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund.
Construction itself took less than a year. Executive Director Chad Cooper, however, traced the project’s start to roughly eight years ago. Over that time, he said, the conservatory’s community music school and its music therapy program each grew to more than twice their former size. Cooper said the work gained urgency as screens took over more of daily life and loneliness and isolation rose.
Music Therapy Institute gets a $2 million grant
The campus is now home to the conservatory’s Music Therapy Institute. Its backing includes $2 million from The Joel Foundation, the organization Alexis and Billy Joel started. With the institute, the conservatory plans to grow its music therapy program, already the biggest in New York City, which reaches upward of 3,000 clients at over 50 locations in every borough. The institute will also be a center for research, advocacy and workforce training in clinical creative arts therapies.
Toby Williams, who directs music therapy at the conservatory, said its therapists hold health care credentials and play multiple instruments. They are trained, Williams said, to take each client’s circumstances, culture and individual differences into account. The institute, Williams said, will build on the conservatory’s “culturally responsive community music therapy model.”
Quick answers
Where is the new Brooklyn Conservatory of Music campus?
At One Prospect Park West, by Grand Army Plaza, four blocks from the conservatory's first building on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope.
What is in the new BKCM Prospect Park West campus?
Thirteen soundproof studios, a performance hall of 1,400 square feet, a community space and the conservatory's Music Therapy Institute.
