With the new year has come a new opportunity to provide both BW and the surrounding community with quality opportunities to teach and learn about the arts.
The Community Arts School (CAS) officially came into existence on Jan. 1 and was formed by the merger of the BW Community Music School (CMS) with Olmsted Performing Arts (OPA).
“The Community Music School is what we call a divisional school of the Conservatory, infant through retiree, and ability and/or experience is not a qualifier,” said Adam Sheldon, former director of CMS and current director of CAS. “You can really engage with us across the spectrum, and then we take you where you are and kind of allow you to mold your skillset into whatever direction you’d like to take that.”
CMS had more than a 40-year history of providing quality musical education and engagement opportunities to the community, said Sheldon, plus a long tradition of offering quality pre-practice experience for students interested in musical education and therapy.
Meanwhile, about two miles down the road, Olmsted Performing Arts was also working to bring quality arts education to the community, said Heather Dennen, the former director of the Department of Dance in OPA and the current director and program coordinator of dance in CAS.
“Olmsted Performing Arts was an organization that strove to present arts,” she said, “by providing class instruction in dance, theater, film, music, gymnastics, as well as giving performance opportunities to the kids through different shows and productions that were put on, as well as community outreach events.”
The merger came about after the fundraising efforts by OPA. It attracted community support that drew the attention and excitement of CMS, which began offering classes and experiences in film, visual arts, dance, [and] theater, said Sheldon.
“We saw it as an opportunity to approach them and say, ‘Could we be better together?’ The answer was, ‘Of course,’” he said. “We each had things to bring to the table. We…worked together every day for about a month and a half on what this could look like, and that was kind of how things began.”
Both the CMS and OPA staff that have come together to form the Community Arts School, said Dennen, bring a lot of passion and engagement to the table and are excited about plans for the new school’s programming going forward.
“At the end of the day, both [CMS’s and OPA’s] goals were to reach as many families as possible through the arts, and to show the community and the families within the community what arts education can bring, Dennen said. “You know, what value does it give to a family, what value does it bring to the community? Everyone who’s part of the Community Arts School’s staff is so passionate about the arts and the values that it does bring, and it just lets us double down and increase our efforts.”
The merger offers a great opportunity for BW to bring quality arts education to even more families within the community in even more areas of the arts, focusing on dance, film, music, theater, and the visual arts.
Together, the two entities that combined to create CAS serve 4,000 families. CAS aims to offer regular fall open houses starting this year, said Sheldon, and plans to continue reaching out in order to serve even more families in the future.
Sheldon, a graduate of BW himself, also said that the merger will provide many more of BW’s undergraduate students with access to that excellent model of pre-service education and experience that future music students interested in education have long benefitted from in CMS.
“We have that model really well-established with music education and with music therapy here at BW,” he said. “Moving forward, we are allowing the same opportunities to grow in our dance, film, theater, and visual art departments, allowing those students to have either directing opportunities or private lesson opportunities. What we’re really doing is creating not only good academic students but also students that can practice their craft and head into the real world with those skills.”

The Community Arts School (CAS) officially came into existence on Jan. 1 and was formed by the merger of the BW Community Music School (CMS) with Olmsted Performing Arts (OPA).
“The Community Music School is what we call a divisional school of the Conservatory, infant through retiree, and ability and/or experience is not a qualifier,” said Adam Sheldon, former director of CMS and current director of CAS. “You can really engage with us across the spectrum, and then we take you where you are and kind of allow you to mold your skillset into whatever direction you’d like to take that.”
CMS had more than a 40-year history of providing quality musical education and engagement opportunities to the community, said Sheldon, plus a long tradition of offering quality pre-practice experience for students interested in musical education and therapy.
Meanwhile, about two miles down the road, Olmsted Performing Arts was also working to bring quality arts education to the community, said Heather Dennen, the former director of the Department of Dance in OPA and the current director and program coordinator of dance in CAS.
“Olmsted Performing Arts was an organization that strove to present arts,” she said, “by providing class instruction in dance, theater, film, music, gymnastics, as well as giving performance opportunities to the kids through different shows and productions that were put on, as well as community outreach events.”
The merger came about after the fundraising efforts by OPA. It attracted community support that drew the attention and excitement of CMS, which began offering classes and experiences in film, visual arts, dance, [and] theater, said Sheldon.
“We saw it as an opportunity to approach them and say, ‘Could we be better together?’ The answer was, ‘Of course,’” he said. “We each had things to bring to the table. We…worked together every day for about a month and a half on what this could look like, and that was kind of how things began.”
Both the CMS and OPA staff that have come together to form the Community Arts School, said Dennen, bring a lot of passion and engagement to the table and are excited about plans for the new school’s programming going forward.
“At the end of the day, both [CMS’s and OPA’s] goals were to reach as many families as possible through the arts, and to show the community and the families within the community what arts education can bring, Dennen said. “You know, what value does it give to a family, what value does it bring to the community? Everyone who’s part of the Community Arts School’s staff is so passionate about the arts and the values that it does bring, and it just lets us double down and increase our efforts.”
The merger offers a great opportunity for BW to bring quality arts education to even more families within the community in even more areas of the arts, focusing on dance, film, music, theater, and the visual arts.
Together, the two entities that combined to create CAS serve 4,000 families. CAS aims to offer regular fall open houses starting this year, said Sheldon, and plans to continue reaching out in order to serve even more families in the future.
Sheldon, a graduate of BW himself, also said that the merger will provide many more of BW’s undergraduate students with access to that excellent model of pre-service education and experience that future music students interested in education have long benefitted from in CMS.
“We have that model really well-established with music education and with music therapy here at BW,” he said. “Moving forward, we are allowing the same opportunities to grow in our dance, film, theater, and visual art departments, allowing those students to have either directing opportunities or private lesson opportunities. What we’re really doing is creating not only good academic students but also students that can practice their craft and head into the real world with those skills.”