Chicago Center for Music Education

Founded, as the Suzuki-Orff School for Young Musicians in 1981, we launched our inaugural classes teaching 15 families of diverse cultural and economic backgrounds through our unique curriculum integrating the Suzuki and Orff methodologies.

In 1986, we expanded on our goal to make music education available to children in Chicago by establishing partnerships with a number of Chicago Public Schools (CPS).  In 2014, we began doing business as the Chicago Center for Music Education (ChiME). 

Through our programs and music therapy services, today we serve nearly 3,000 children every year at our location in West Town and ten partner organizations, six of which are Chicago Public Elementary schools. Approximately 20% of the children we serve have diverse learning abilities and over 50% of the children we serve are economically disadvantaged. 
 

We serve the Chicagoland through our: 

• Diverse Abilities program
• Early Childhood and Classroom Music programs
• Instrumental program​