Cleveland Institute of Music

This door, slightly reminiscent of the sea, is one of the gateways to Kulas Hall, the jewel of the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM), which is among the country’s finest independent conservatories. In 1920, Martha Bell Sanders and Mary Hutchens Smith led a band of merry music lovers to turn the dream of a conservatory in Cleveland, Ohio, into a reality. This group of donors contributed a thousand dollars each, with the intent to establish a “school of music where every type of student could find opportunity.”

First led by Swiss composer Ernest Bloch, CIM inhabited several spaces around Cleveland until 1961, when the institute built its forever home, a white-and-teal paradigm of international-style architecture in University Circle. Kulas Hall—one of two performance venues at the institute—was named for philanthropist Elroy J. Kulas and his music-loving wife, Fynette Hill Kulas.

Fynette was especially devoted to young people getting involved with music, and would buy tickets to performances so that students could attend. This generosity would develop into the Kulas Student Ticket Program at eighteen different Cleveland-area colleges and universities. Many of the halls of their namesake building are lined with this distinctive ceramic tile, whose color and emerging sounds are forever associated.

📖 Full Story Page 32