Merit School of Music
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Merit School of Music is a nationally accredited music school and nonprofit organization located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Merit focuses on high-quality music instruction for kids and teens, offering group music classes, private lessons, and Conservatory level instruction. Merit has branches in Chicago's West Loop, Old Town, and South Shore neighborhoods, and provides in-school instruction at schools across Chicagoland.
Merit School of Music is a member of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts, Illinois Arts Alliance, Illinois Alliance for Arts in Education, Chicago Consortium of Community Music Schools, and the Chicago Music Alliance. Merit is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Precollegiate Arts Schools.
Merit School of Music was founded in 1979 by Alice S. Pfaelzer and Emma Endres-Kountz in response to the elimination of music education from the Chicago Public Schools' elementary school curriculum. They had borrowed space from Roosevelt University for their tuition-free conservatory program, held on Saturday afternoons. Two years later Merit's growing enrollment created the need for a larger space and the school was moved to Chicago's Fine Arts Building. In 1987, Merit moved again to the basement of the Dearborn Station in Chicago's Printer's Row neighborhood. This location remained the school's home for the next 18 years.
By 2005, the school needed more room to accommodate its student body. After a $19 million capital campaign, Merit purchased an old TV studio in Chicago's West Loop and underwent extensive renovations to make the building musically equipped. The building is named the Joy Faith Knapp Music Center. It is located on 38 South Peoria Street.