Celebration of Teaching & Learning

Harbor Conservatory for the Performing Arts was the subject of the PBS documentary “Mi Mambo” which was aired on CANTOS LATINOS as part of thirteen’s celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. We are recognized internationally for our Afro-Caribbean Latin Music Program which includes a curriculum covering folkloric, contemporary popular music: Salsa and Latin Jazz . We provide both introductory arts experience as well as pre-professional training with preparation for entry into specialized performing arts high schools and colleges. To learn more about us, please visit us on-line at www.harborconservatory.org.

Harbor Conservatory for the Performing Arts, a division of Boys & Girls Harbor, Inc., is now celebrating over 38 years as one of New York City’s leading performing arts schools offering high caliber, low-cost training in music, dance and theater to over 1,100 students annually. The Conservatory provides introductory, intermediate and pre-professional training to students ages 4-21. The Music program is open to adults, and is recognized internationally for its comprehensive Latin Music Program. The Conservatory is unique in its focus on pre-teen and teenage talent development through special ensembles, public performances, and career and college counseling and placement. Harbor students have been accepted into professional schools and conservatories, and have performed for commercials, sitcoms, public television, and on Broadway. While the Conservatory prepares young people for careers in the arts, it also helps those who do not pursue this direction gain the skills and confidence that are needed to succeed in education, employment and positive family and community life.

The Music Program at the Harbor Conservatory takes pride in its commitment to serving children, teenagers and adults in a diverse range of styles from Classical and Jazz to Folkloric and Latin. The two main pillars of the music program are a strong theory foundation as well as an active performance calendar with monthly “in-house” student recitals, three major outside recitals and a guest artist series which hosts a variety of well-known performing artists and master teachers to work with our students. A large number of ensembles and workshops in all styles and levels are offered to our young performers as an important part of their musical development. The Harbor Conservatory is recognized internationally as the leading school for Latin music and is home to the Raices Latin Music Collection.

The Harbor Conservatory Dance Program introduces young children to the world of dance, and nurtures and trains talented teenagers for future professional dance careers. Studying with accomplished dance professionals, Harbor Conservatory students build a solid technical foundation in classical ballet, modern, jazz, tap, hip hop, African and folkloric dance. Students progress through varied technical levels and new classes are continually being developed to better serve a diverse age range of dance students. With an emphasis on performance, all students participate in “Footworks.” Advanced students at the junior and senior levels are able to audition for Gestures, our resident student dance company, which helps them develop performance technique and experience a vigorous public performance schedule.

The Conservatory’s Theater Program, inspired by the vision of the late Bertin Rowser, aims to preserve the tradition of Musical Theatre and the craft of acting through classes that cultivate future actors for the stage and new audiences for the theatre. The curriculum gives young people the opportunity to explore themselves body, mind and soul as people, actors and future professional artists. With a diverse faculty of working actors, directors and playwrights, the Conservatory’s Theater Program celebrates the great contributions made by artists of color from the past and inspires students to see how they fit, as artists, within the more diverse professional landscape of the future.