Hitting the right notes at the Bronx House
On Saturday morning, Melissa Seymour unpacked her cello and set it up alongside instructor Agnes Nagy, a professional musician from Hungary, at the School for the Performing Arts at the Bronx House. Bass melodies soon filled the borrowed pre-K classroom, which the school uses on weekends as needed.
“I had been looking for cello lessons and saw that the Bronx House had it, so I decided it was a great place to start. I met Agnes and here I am,” said Ms. Seymour, an adult student who, along with hundreds of others, found time out that weekend to learn music in the sprawling community center building on Pelham Parkway.
Inside the school, ballerinas in pink and sky blue leotards darted off to the next class, while a group of students learned piano in soundproofed rooms and the dull thump of a rock rhythm played out on an unseen drum set. Parents waited in the lounge, sometimes exasperatedly, as the laughter and cries of dancers and musicians echoed around the building.
The school, which was founded in 1912, hosts hundreds of children and adults from Tuesday through Sunday. It also partners with the Riverdale Children’s Theater to bring stage productions to the Bronx House auditorium, and students come from all parts of the Bronx, Upper Manhattan and Westchester. The dance classes include ballet, African, tap, jazz and hip hop, and the musical options range from piano to voice lessons to electric guitar, with many more instruments in between.
For more information, contact program assistant Shannon Reynolds at 718-792-1800 ext. 235 or visit www.bronxhouse.org.
