Hassadna Jerusalem Music Conservatory

Welcome to Hassadna!

Founded in 1973 by pianist and musician Amalia Reuel, Hassadna Jerusalem Music Conservatory works with Israel’s top music professionals to bring a world-class music education to 600 plus students aged birth to 18 from every sector of Israeli society.

Hassadna’s students, ensembles and orchestras compete in prestigious international competitions — and win them. Its graduates help fill the ranks of the IDF’s Distinguished Musicians Unit and are admitted to highly competitive music programs at elite conservatories and universities around the world.

‘Equality lab’

At the same time, and without compromise, Hassadna is a socio-economic ‘equality lab’ in which music levels the playing field. Religious and secular; Jews, Christians and Muslims; male and female; new and established immigrants; the privileged and the disadvantaged; supremely gifted students and those who play just for pleasure — Hassadna is the harmonious home they share in this fiercely divided city. 

Scholarships and special programs like our path-breaking Program for Children of Ethiopian Descent, established in 2003, enable Hassadna to deliver on its commitment to absolute equality. It’s a sign of its success to date that many of its highest achievers started at the back of the race.

Israel has struggled for decades with the integration of Ethiopian and other immigrants. At Hassadna, they have been fully integrated, and excelling, for more than 15 years.

One of a kind

‘Unique’ is an over-used word, but Hassadna deserves it. Come visit us in Jerusalem, if you can, to see for yourself the miracle that is Hassadna. Otherwise, this website is for you.

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Education for life

Hassadna Jerusalem Music Conservatory works with Israel’s top classical and jazz music professionals to bring a world-class music education to all our students, regardless of religion, race, gender, family income and social status. Some of our graduates become music professionals themselves. All our students carry out into their lives the discipline, commitment, respect for learning and desire to excel they learned at Hassadna.

From loving music to loving your neighbor

Hassadna’s heart and soul is our student body: 600 plus 3-to-18-year-olds from every walk of Israeli life. Without ever losing sight of our primary goal of musical excellence, Hassadna has created a phenomenon that’s all too rare in Israel: a space in which boundaries are erased, differences dissolved and students are united by the passion for music we strive from day one to instill in them. At Hassadna, we teach our students to love music. But to our great joy, they also learn to love each other.

Leveling the playing field

Hassadna is a microcosm of what Israel — in fact, the world — should be. Some of our students come from privileged homes where the radio plays non-stop classical and the kids make up their own string quartets. Other students come from single parent homes or sheltered accommodation with none of those advantages. But every single student who enters Hassadna is encouraged to excel to the maximum. Scholarships and special programs like our Ethiopian program enable Hassadna to deliver on our commitment to absolute equality. It’s a source of endless pride that many of our highest-achievers started at the back of the race.

Watch: This is Hassadna (prepare to be moved…)

Watch: a very special concert

Bring us home!

Hassadna is seeking donations for a new building as well as for musical instruments and support for orchestras and ensembles. For more details click here.

Thank you!

Hassadna is extremely grateful for generous financial support from:

• The Jerusalem Foundation
• The Beracha Foundation
• The Schocken Foundation
• The Rochlin Foundation
• The Clore Israel Foundation
• The Rachel and Jules Lubell Scholarships
• The Leir Foundation
• The Polonsky Foundation
• The Jewish Federation of Cleveland
• Bank Leumi

We are grateful too to the many private individuals in Israel and abroad who support Hassadna with their gifts of money, but also unstinting time, energy, enthusiasm and love.  

Summing up

“This perfect place is hard to describe in words. That is why in the far future, when I will remember Hassadna, I will not think about what they gave me or what they did for me, but I will think about how they made me feel.” Avraham Terifa (below right), Graduate of Hassadna’s Program for Children of Ethiopian Descent

Come visit us!

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