Anna Lipowitz, '14 (far right) with staff of Settlement Music School

Anna Lipowitz, Bachelor of Music, Class of 2014, recently completed a summer internship with Settlement Music School in Philadelphia. Settlement Music School is one of the oldest non-profit community schools in the country and thrives on providing people of all ages, races, and gender the opportunity to learn music. Settlement has six branches in the Philadelphia area.  Founded in 1908, Settlement has served over 300,000 students from pre-school through seniors and provides scholarship assistance of over $2 million annually.

Anna worked in the development office in south Philadelphia which handles donor recognition, grant-writing  and event planning and logistics. Throughout the summer, Anna performed a variety of tasks such organizing and maintaining the School's database and editing videos. Anna's most important job was filming and editing a video about Settlement's Kaleidoscope Pre-K program, which provides young children (ages 3-5) with the opportunity to have a music-infused education.

VIDEO

Settlement Music School provides arts-centered preschool to inner-city children whose test scores for school readiness are three times greater than peers in a non-arts based program. (Arts Enrichment and School Readiness for Children at Risk by Dr. Eleanor D. Brown; Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 2010)

Faculty for the Kaleidoscope Pre-K program include instructors in music, dance, and the visual arts. Music instructor, Martha Zook was a violist in the Philadelphia orchestra for many years. 

Anna had a history with Settlement before her internship this summer.  “I was a student at Settlement for two years (I played violin in a string quartet) and, as a former student, it was wonderful to work behind the scenes and see how much the faculty of Settlement Music School care and encourage others to include music in their daily lives. There are so many aspects to music. I am very happy to have been part of such a wonderful, inspiring school.”