Music center in Southeast Portland celebrates being in tune with the community | OregonLive.com

Music center in Southeast Portland celebrates being in tune with the community | OregonLive.com

Music center in Southeast Portland celebrates being in tune with the community

Community Music Center

Becky Anderson  has played violin at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She's performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She – and her violin –will be featured in an upcoming HBO series on the performing arts. 

Anderson, 19,  grew up in Southwest Portland, graduated from Lincoln High School and attends the Curtis Institute of Music, a prestigious conservatory in Philadelphia. 

But her story as a promising young violinist starts here: a 1912 firehouse tucked into a residential neighborhood of Southeast Portland, where Anderson took her first music class at age 3 and where she continued to perform through high school. This is the Community Music Center, a little gem of a place that draws budding young – and older –musicians from across Portland for lessons, performances and exposure to everything from baroque to bluegrass. 

View full sizeNoelle Crombie/The OregonianA young man heads into the Community Music Center in Southeast Portland. The center celebrates its anniversary on Sunday.Think of it, as director Gregory Dubay  says, as Portland's music room. 

But this is no ordinary music school. Funded with a mix of public and private dollars, the center is aPortland Parks & Recreationfacility, making it one of a handful of