A $1.7 million gift will permanently fund free private music lessons for Cincinnati Public Schools students with financial need. All CPS students are eligible, including those at east-side schools such as Kilgour Elementary and Hyde Park School.
The estate gift from Phil Berne, Susan Carlson and Ben's cousin David Berne establishes the Ben Carlson-Berne Endowed Fund at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music's preparatory program, known as CCM Prep. The fund honors their son Ben Carlson-Berne, who died in a hiking accident in 2002 at age 19, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
The scholarship covers private music lessons for CPS students based on financial need, not talent. Recipients can continue receiving support through high school graduation.
About 400 CPS students have received lessons through the program since it began roughly two decades ago. University officials said the impact is expected to grow as the endowment increases.
How it started
As a student at Wyoming High School, Carlson-Berne volunteered to teach classical music to children through the former Arts Consortium in downtown Cincinnati. When his students couldn't practice at home, he found a fix.
"He said, 'the kids want to learn how to play piano and they can't practice because they don't have a piano, so we need to get them pianos,'" his mother, Susan Carlson, told the Enquirer. "'We would get donated pianos from people, and I would rent a U-Haul, and we would push them into people's apartments downtown.'"
At the time of his death, Carlson-Berne was studying piano performance and international studies at the University of Wisconsin.
His parents started the scholarship fund about two years after he died, initially running it through local nonprofits. The program recently moved under CCM Prep's umbrella, securing it as a permanent endowment. Carlson, a professor emerita in the UC School of Social Work according to a UC news release published Aug. 20, called CCM Prep the perfect home for the scholarship.
Scholarship recipient aims to teach percussion
One beneficiary is Adolphus McCullum, a percussionist who started private lessons at age 7. He is a senior at the School for Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA), a CPS school serving about 1,300 students in grades K through 12.
McCullum has earned recognition from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Ohio Music Education Association. He told the Enquirer he plans to study music and computer science in college and wants to become a percussion teacher.
His sister, Allyssa Early-McCullom, also received scholarship support. She earned degrees from UC Blue Ash and Full Sail University and now works as a violist.
Their mother, Sharon Early-McCullom, told the Enquirer the family's generosity changed her children's lives. She said Berne and Carlson made sure her kids had private lessons so they could play for the rest of their lives.
Maggie Perrino, assistant dean for CCM Prep and Community Engagement, said in the UC release that the family has spent more than 20 years channeling their love for Ben into other families' children.
Friends and neighbors honored Carlson-Berne with a memorial at Wyoming High School inscribed with a line from Shakespeare: "This above all, to thy own self be true." Donations to the endowment can be made through the University of Cincinnati Foundation at foundation.uc.edu.
