The Troy Savings Bank Music Hall is set to become a multi-faceted arts and education hub thanks to the efforts of a new non-profit organization formed out of a partnership between the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall Corporation and the Empire State Youth Orchestra.
The Alliance for Music Performance will explore uses for two newly-acquired floors of the Troy Savings Bank building in order to provide more performance and arts education opportunities for Troy and the greater Capital Region.
“The alliance we’ve formed has the opportunity to explore how the two organizations can maximize their impact by using their shared resources and reimagine the usable space that is now under our purview,” says Rebecca Calos, Executive Director of the Empire State Youth Orchestra. “It’s in the early stages but we want to look at how to open the building for a community experience around music. There is tremendous potential and we’ve been talking about it for a number of years. These ideas and visions have coalesced in the form of the new alliance and nonprofit.”
Making the Savings Bank more of a living resource to the community has been a focus for the organization for some time. “From the moment the First Niagara Bank Branch closed, we began to think about ways that would allow the Music Hall to fulfill its potential as an asset in serving the community through promoting the arts,’ said TSBMH Executive Director Jon Elbaum. “The ability to bring touring artists into contact with young musicians on a regular basis is an exciting reason to move forward.”
Elbaum says he sees the creation of Alliance for Music performance as a boon for the local arts community and a way to create generations of future music aficionados.
The ESYO’s CHIME program is likely to expand its reach through increased classroom space at the Savings Bank. Started in Schenectady in 2015, CHIME provides free daily music education to disadvantaged youth from across the region. It currently serves over 600 area youth.
In 2018, the program expanded from Schenectady to elementary schools in Troy. The organization currently runs CHIME programs out of Proctors in Schenectady and they hope to have a similar foothold in Troy Savings Bank as part of the expansion.
Calos says there is a lot of fundraising, planning and implementation to be done but, once up and running, she hopes there will be a “flex space for recitals and community events, a separate entrance to the education center and a new ‘inviting courtyard.’”
Elbaum says he is excited to expand musical education opportunities to residents of the entire Capital Region “The entire region will benefit from this. The activity created by this will have economic benefits to Troy but we want the benefit to be far more widespread.”
