Building arts from the ground up Building arts from the ground up (December 24, 2004)

New Finn Center boosts CSMA enrollment

By Julie O'Shea

It has been a year since the Community School of Music and Arts moved into the Finn Center, an impressive, well-designed cement building at the end of San Antonio Circle.

"This facility is really unique to Mountain View. There really isn't anything like this anywhere else," said Evy Schiffman, CSMA's communications director. "The chance to build an arts facility from the ground up is unparalleled. It's a chance in a lifetime."

CSMA, which offers art and music classes to roughly 30,000 people in the area, is one of five local nonprofits being supported this year by the VoiceHoliday Fund drive.

The school has been a Mountain View fixture since 1968. But last month, it was thrust into the national spotlight when Finn Center -- CSMA's first permanent home in its 36-year history -- won a prestigious architectural award from BusinessWeek and Architectural Record.

But while CSMA appreciates the national honors, it's the noise the $11.7 million, 25,000-square-foot building is making at home that is most important to Schiffman.

"It's a place to bring people together," Schiffman said. "It's a blank canvas. It's our students; it's our music; it's our arts that is adding the color."

Since the new building opened last January, there has been a 42 percent increase in on-site class enrollment, noted Jay Jhun, the senior marketing manager at CSMA.

"I really like it. It really increases your feeling of being a bigger part of the musical community," said Sarah Stanley, a Mountain View High school junior who has taken flute lessons at CSMA for more than five years.

CSMA "really inspires you to love music," she added. "I wouldn't think of myself as a musician if I hadn't taken lessons at the school."

With its proximity to public transit and its wide variety of class offerings, from ceramics to one-on-one music lessons in one of 17 private studios, CSMA attracts people from all over the Peninsula, Schiffman said.

The school has almost 800 students trekking through Finn Center on a weekly basis and provides on-campus art and music classes to 10,000 children in 20 school districts from San Mateo to San Jose, including Mountain View-Whisman and Los Altos.

New for the school is a 200-seat concert hall, where 100 student recitals are scheduled annually. Throughout the year, the school books a series of family concerts and solo guest musicians. And in the main lobby of Finn Center, visiting artists showcase their works.

The public is invited to CSMA's one-year birthday party on March 19. The gala will be held in conjunction with First 5, a Santa Clara County nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of young children. For more information about the party, call Schiffman at 917-6800 Ext. 305.

E-mail Julie O'Shea at joshea@mv-voice.com

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