Conservatory Lab Charter School Makes Music a Priority for Students

By Sarah Freiberg | From the September/October 2025 issue of Strings

At Conservatory Lab Charter School in Dorchester, Massachusetts, basses and cellos line the hallways of the Upper School, which serves grades three through eight. Students are encouraged to take their instruments home in the evenings and on weekends. Here, music is a daily activity—all students work on their instrument of focus every school day as part of the curriculum. On this campus, music is everywhere. 

Conservatory Lab began as a Boston charter school in 1999, initially with music lessons taking place after school. It moved from Brighton to Dorchester (separate neighborhoods of Boston) in 2015, with renovations completed on the Upper School in 2020. There are plenty of rehearsal spaces and soundproof classrooms, a sparkly lunchroom, and a beautiful gym. Now the school focuses on project-based Expeditionary Learning (EL), using the ensemble-based, equity-focused El Sistema method, developed in Venezuela, for music education. 

“Our mission,” says executive director Nicole Mack, “is to help students become scholars, artists, and leaders in our community. Our students play music every single day, and they also engage in project-based learning. We see the music program as not only a skill-based music program, but also an opportunity to build social development skills that students can internalize to other areas.” Jennifer Espinal, a rising tenth grader and cellist, remembers Conservatory Lab fondly: “I got the opportunity to learn something not everyone gets a chance to do. Music is a privilege. It was just an amazing experience to bond and learn with other students.”

There are approximately 50 students in each grade, with the majority coming from Dorchester. The Conservatory Lab is a lottery school for the city of Boston, with preference given to families. About 30 percent are siblings, with several cousins as well. The youngest students attend the Lower School, starting with general music and moving to stringed instruments by second grade. Before they begin at the Upper School, they have each committed at a signing ceremony to the instrument they will play through the eighth grade.

As Matt Chapuran, executive director of the Conservatory Lab Foundation, puts it, “Music is not a ‘strange island’—everything is cross disciplinary.” In other words, music is integrated into all that the school does. The school day starts at 7:15 a.m., running until 2:30, with aftercare available—for clubs, sports, academic enrichment, tutoring, and chorus. 

In daily music classes, the students work together. Instruction is mostly in a group setting. In a classroom visit, I watch a dozen violinists name notes aloud, followed by four violists, and then they play those lines together. With the violists a fifth lower, it sounds a bit like Gregorian chant. Their teacher, Alyze Rabideau, conducts, keeping them focused and encouraging them. No one is singled out. Any mistakes are corrected in time, by the entire group. At Conservatory Lab, mistakes are not only acceptable but are also vital to learning—there is no judgment. Everyone is eager to figure out how to fix things and improve together. Nestled in a corner of the room is a welcoming “rest stop”—a little area with music flash cards in case anyone needs a break. 

In a sixth-grade class, Brad Barrett works with a half dozen cellists on a complex piece. When not everyone is able to master a particularly gnarly articulation, he breaks down the task, making sure that all the students work on it together on open strings first, and then in context, and also that they are in tune and matching the pitch of the keyboard he plays with them. It is impressive to see how quickly the students improve, and how focused they are. Barrett says that not all the students will go on in music, but all of them will have learned how to practice and problem solve. 

The school presents public concerts throughout the year, and in preparation, the sixth through eighth grade string students come together on Fridays, with sectionals taking place the other days. Barrett says the repertoire is quite varied: “It’s not just classical music, though it is important for them to know the whole canon—Mozart, Beethoven, etc. But we want the music to relate to the students too. We always do pop tunes at concerts; we try to keep the repertoire diverse. We want the students to have agency, to see themselves as creative musicians.”

Espinal loved the piece Dragonhunter by Richard Meyer: “We played it at least three times—I probably have it memorized. And we sounded better each time. My favorite memory was in getting ready for my first concert. I was so nervous but excited at the same time. I got onstage and forgot about everything and just got lost in the piece I was playing.” 

At concerts, the ensembles perform without a conductor. All students learn how to start the group, stay together, and navigate tempo changes. This helps them take ownership of the piece and the performance. Barrett sees himself as a coach rather than a conductor. “I want the students to learn what we just did, and what we need to do.” They are not only responsible for keeping together in performance but also for introducing the pieces. “It is much more powerful for the students to be in control of their own destiny as much as possible,” says Barrett. “They are very capable of doing things if you set them up for success.” 

The teachers use a variety of music—from scales and exercises to solo repertoire integrated with the orchestral music chosen for the ensemble. Barrett often uses a metronome in his teaching; he has a multi-rhythm one that makes it more fun, and his synthesizer helps make sure students can match pitches. Each quarter, the students get tested on scales, exercises, repertoire, pitch, rhythm, quality of sound, articulation, and dynamics. 

There is more time for creative ventures in the spring. This year’s project, titled Identity Unmasked, asked students to interview family members with prompts about what it means to be from a particular place. The students wrote texts, set the texts to music—some of which they composed—and then recorded in chamber groups, playing percussion instruments as well as their stringed instruments, experimenting with sounds and rhythms. Says Espinal: “Projects gave us a lot of freedom. It’s so cool we have that trust and can just rely on each other.”

Espinal has moved on to high school but returns every week during the school year to Conservatory Lab as part of a work/study program, to help wherever needed. “I really enjoyed my time here. This is a valuable way to stay in touch.”

Throughout their years at Conservatory Lab School, students study with the same music teachers. Barrett says it is so rewarding “to see them grow up and accomplish a lot.” Many get into the Boston Arts Academy, and a number have gone on to Berklee and other local colleges. One student who’d moved on to another school told Barrett the new school was OK, but “in your class, I had to think.”