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May 3, 2005

"If you have a dream and don't work at it, what good is the dream?" --Rita Simo

Music for the People

Rita Simo left an impoverished upbringing in the Dominican Republic for the Juilliard School, became a concert pianist, and then a nun. In 1976, acting on her belief that classical music instruction should be available to everyone regardless of economic class, she opened the People's Music School in 1976. The school, in Chicago's gritty Uptown neighborhood, provides tuition-free music instruction to anyone.