The soaring glass building beside the Guthrie hums — literally. MacPhail Center for Music, founded in 1907 and now one of the largest community music schools in the United States, teaches some 15,000 students a year: toddlers in early-childhood music classes, teens in rock bands and orchestras, adults finally taking those piano lessons.
Its riverfront home, designed for sound, hosts hundreds of performances a year — many free — from faculty recitals to the MacPhail Concerto & Aria concerts. Community partnerships carry MacPhail teaching into schools, senior centers and hospitals across Minnesota.
MacPhail’s philosophy is Minneapolis in miniature: excellence without elitism. The door is open, the pianos are tuned, and somebody’s first recital is always about to make a parent cry.
