The Lyric, a historic music venue in Mount Vernon, has hosted the likes of Diana Ross, Frank Sinatra, and Prince in its 132 years of existence.
Last November, that stage was the domain of Baltimore City Public School students who were performing at the Dream Big Celebration, the culmination of an arts competition highlighting the life and work of James Baldwin.
Edward Hrybyk, composer and jazz ensemble director at the Baltimore School of the Arts, was in attendance as his students’ nine-piece ensemble wowed an intimate audience with its renditions of classic jazz songs, including a performance of “In a Mellow Tone,” popularized by American jazz singer and songwriter Ella Fitzgerald.
As proud as he was of his students, Hrybyk laments that so few Baltimore students who are not at the School for the Arts are exposed to band or orchestra.
“It really depends on if there’s a teacher and how much support the principal really gives,” said Hrybyk. “You see students that come in, without a high level of skill, and they don’t make it in … They don’t have a teacher who’s telling them what to do. They don’t have a private instructor.”
“You can’t really get to this level without having some help in elementary and middle school. You build that foundation early on,” he said.
Outside of BSA, a competitive, selective arts magnet high school, students of Baltimore City Schools have fewer and fewer opportunities to study music in a formal school setting.
Of the district’s 93 middle schools, only 10 offer orchestra or band programs, according to the school district and a 2024 Fine Arts Town Hall report. For many of these students, exposure to fine arts is limited due to graduation requirements and the demand for standardized testing results. Schools outside of those 10 offer one of the following options: dance, visual arts, photography, and digital arts.
Baltimore City has 16,640 enrolled middle school students for the 2025-26 academic year, according to the school district’s report. Students are only required to take one fine arts class, which can range from visual arts, media, theater, music, or vocal performance.
The Baltimore City Public Schools website’s instructional framework section emphasizes the importance of students developing their literature, social studies, mathematics, and science skills to prepare for state testing, which determines the students’ high school selection. Meanwhile, the fine arts page on the district website is separate, showing only a photo gallery of instrumental classes, student art, and choir. There is no structured curriculum or academic track for music or other art programs.
Yolanda Y. Redding, a former music teacher in Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Prince George’s County Public Schools, has seen firsthand the differences in investment in different school districts in the state.
“Everything, in my opinion, flows from the top down, so if the city leadership does not take the fine arts seriously, then their leadership isn’t going to take it seriously,” said Redding.
“If they ever sat in a music theory classroom or any music classroom, they would realize it is much more advanced and analytical than people think. You have to think analytically and critically,” she added.
Music education can open another route to college and a career. Otis Eldridge, a Baltimore native and a music teacher and band director at Hamilton Elementary/Middle School, credits his career to the exposure to music he had as a middle school student in Baltimore.
“I started in Baltimore City Public Schools at Booker T. Washington Middle School, where they had something called the Arts Academy,” said Eldridge. “It was a targeted program, because they recognized that not a lot of students were given this opportunity. I was lucky to join it in sixth grade. As a young Black man from Baltimore City, music and band literally guided me through high school, college, and now I am a music teacher.”
“That one action, joining the band at 11 years old, guided me through now. So, I’m 40, and I have a career, I have a home, and I have a wife,” he said. “And all of that started because some man put a saxophone in my hand.”
“That one action, joining the band at 11 years old, guided me through now…And all of that started because some man put a saxophone in my hand.”
Otis Eldridge, a Baltimore native and a music teacher and band director at Hamilton Elementary/Middle School
Eldridge says that his parents didn’t graduate from high school and weren’t able to give him a lot of guidance. “The teachers literally were my window to the outside world when it came to paying for school,” he said. “I know a lot of students in Baltimore City have the same outlook and background as me, and so the band will put you in, and keep you in, college.”
Ronan Goeke, a junior at the Baltimore School for the Arts and trumpet player in Hrybyk’s jazz ensemble, agreed.
“I’m going to go to music school because it’s something I care about deeply. The skills I’m learning, collaboration, discipline, interpretation, they translate to everything in life,” said Goeke, who previously learned trumpet through community ensembles while living in Alabama. “It wasn’t until I moved to Maryland in seventh grade that I had my first experiences with a school band. That changed my direction, and then it immediately led to me auditioning for BSA and getting into BSA in ninth grade.”
Across the state, Maryland students receive widely varying levels of music education investment.
Less than 15 miles separates Stephen Jones Jr.’s two classrooms — he teaches at Johnston Square Elementary in Baltimore City during the academic year and at the Bridges program at The Saint Paul’s School for Boys in Baltimore County in the summer. But the difference in resources is stark.
“Anything fine arts is not prioritized the way it should be,” said Jones of City Schools. “And that really reaches back, to the budget cuts to 1983 by Ronald Reagan, a lot of things were cut when it comes to fine arts, and it shows.”
For Jones, music is more than an extra class on students’ schedules; it’s a transformative tool that can shape the next generation and help them connect with their communities. “If you’re from Baltimore, you know that West Baltimore has its culture, its music, its art, and East Baltimore has its own culture, music, and art,” Jones said.
For Jones, music is more than an extra class on students’ schedules; it’s a transformative tool that can shape the next generation and help them connect with their communities.
Educators like Jones and Redding argue that the fine arts provide another pathway for students to express creativity, develop cultural awareness, life skills, and critical thinking skills. And education researchers have long linked sustained participation in music and arts programs with stronger student engagement, attendance, collaboration skills, and academic outcomes.
Montgomery County Public Schools requires students to take a full year of a fine arts core in middle school, and if they select music, they have the option to take choral, general, and instrumental music, according to the district’s website.
Both Prince George’s County Public Schools and Baltimore County Public Schools offer an extensive range of music courses that can be selected as a fine arts requirement for graduation, per their district websites.
All four districts recently published report cards from the 2024-2025 year. Baltimore City was the only district that did not show improvement in the four major indicator areas of achievement: academic progress, progress in achieving English language proficiency, school quality, and student success.
Montgomery County received the highest average collectively amongst the four report card categories at 13.825 points. Following in second is Prince George’s County, which averaged 12.25.
Baltimore City, which ranked last with an average of 10.95 points, was the only school district that did not improve in school quality and student success. It is also the only district without a broad range of music offerings.
And while experts caution that arts offerings are one factor among many that influence school performance, Montgomery County Public Schools says its music and fine arts programs help develop creative thinking, problem-solving, and social-emotional skills tied to college and career readiness. The report card data suggest that a broader suite of course offerings increases the overall opportunity for academic success.
Baltimore City Public Schools Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Kevin Cuppett told Baltimore Beat the district remains committed to providing arts education. “I do think it’s a priority in the district, and I think we’re very committed to trying to get as many students exposed and have experiences in the arts in general, but specifically in instrumental music,” Cuppett said.
Cuppett said the district was still compiling updated enrollment and course data and declined to answer when asked to estimate how many schools currently offer band or orchestra in their academic curriculum.
There are extracurricular programs in the city that introduce kids to music. TWIGS (To Work In Gaining Skills) is a free after-school program that nurtures second- through eighth-grade students by developing their skills and understanding in one of the five arts disciplines: dance, music, theatre, stage design and production, visual arts, or film and visual storytelling.
OrchKids and Save the Music provide Baltimore youth with access to instruments and high-quality music instruction designed not only to teach musical techniques but also to build important social skills. Some of these programs operate during the school day, while others offer instruction through after-school and summer programming designed to build student interest in instrumental music.
Redding, having worked across multiple different districts, has seen how different levels of investment impact students.
“The difference is Prince George’s County Department cares about their music teachers,” Redding said. “It’s not just the music department, the entire county is involved, at least when I was there, and making sure that the music educators were getting the necessary training, or necessary professional development … There was an effort to keep the music program strong.”
As one of the few schools in the city that does heavily fund music education, BSA has become a beacon for students and educators alike.
As the BSA Jazz Ensemble closed its set at the Dream Big Celebration at the Lyric last November, Hrybyk rocked back and forth near the front of the room, listening as the final notes carried through the Lyric’s small foyer performance area. The performance, he said, was a reminder of what students can achieve when they are introduced to music early and supported along the way. Even after the final note faded, the moment stayed with him.