Who We Are
©Bill Sublette
Our Mission
The 214 Community Arts Center is organized to operate a vibrant, non-profit community arts center, particularly focusing on promoting and supporting traditional music and dance and providing opportunities for education, participation, performance, and community outreach.
In July of 2006, the Blue Ridge Irish Music School (BRIMS) signed a lease for the space at 214 Rugby Road in Charlottesville that had for many years been occupied by The Prism Coffeehouse, Inc. The Prism Coffeehouse, Inc. had moved from this location and removed all of the physical assets belonging to that organization. BRIMS has since been conducting classes, music sessions, and subletting space for other community based music and dance endeavors. BRIMS had hoped that a broad based community organization would form to pursue a mission that would include not only the objectives of BRIMS, but also those of other like minded organizations and individuals who want to promote traditional music and dance in Central Virginia.
©Bill Sublette
The 214 Community Arts Center is that organization. We formed a board of directors that originally included two representatives each from BRIMS, Acoustic Muse, Charlottesville Friends of Old-Time Music, and a group of traditional music teachers. Those initial eight board members then invited six more people from the community at large to join the board, giving us a wide range of talents and perspectives.
Even though our organization is relatively new, we have the benefit of connections to these other more established groups, and there is already a series of concerts occurring in the building, regular jam sessions, and many traditional music and dance lessons and classes. We hope to raise a total of $25,000 by July 31, 2007 from benefit concerts, individual and corporate donations, and grants to allow us to purchase the furniture and equipment we need to be a first class facility and begin to fund the programming that people want.
Charlottesville has long been rich in the number of great traditional musicians who live here and those who want a chance to play here as they take their music on the road. There is a long history of the broader community appreciating and supporting the types of things we are doing. We know that we can count on this support to help us create a focal point for the traditional arts, an organization in which we can all participate, a community that nourishes us all.
