Under the Bridge

by René Polin

I’m a member of the Board of Directors here at The Music Settlement, and music is important to me in that I’ve had music in my life since I was a baby. There was a song called “Papa Upa” from my father, who came here from Cuba. And “Papa Upa” was something that I would ride my rocking horse to when I was a kid, when I was a really little kid. And when “Papa Upa” would come on, I would go nuts. My parents didn’t have a whole lot of money. We grew up on the other side of the bridge here through East Cleveland, and they wanted us to have a great education, and they worked multiple jobs. I don’t know if we received some sort of financial aid—I really don’t know how we were able to come here. But I was able to take piano classes a few other different kinds of classes for maybe ten or eleven years at The Music Settlement,

I had an incredible teacher named Marjorie Muehlhauser, who was so good. When she would present a piece to me to learn to play, if she found that I didn’t like it, she would switch. She wanted to keep me interested. She wanted to keep me going. She knew that there were some things that just didn’t appeal to me, so to keep me going and not just hit you over the knuckles with a ruler (like my typing teacher did in high school), she would provide some great new music that she thought appealed to me. She would play the piece, I would listen to it, and she would see if my eyes lit up or not. And if they did, she’d assign the piece and then we’d work on it. She was just amazing, an amazing woman. I later reached out to her, but it was a little bit too late, and I missed her—she’d already passed.

I’m so grateful for the opportunity to come to The Music Settlement—to learn these things, to build my skills, to understand music, to understand why the “Papa Upa” connected with me, to get to the point where I was playing in a rock band in high school (I still have synthesizers, keyboards, and all of that). And I listen to music—I think my Spotify account has some record number of hours that I listen to during the workday.

Without The Music Settlement, I just don’t know if I would be where I am, if I would have been as successful at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where I eventually ended up going to school and building and growing a creative career. It was the combination of music and art and all the creativity I learned starting here and going through college—being the first in my family to graduate from college is such a big deal for me.

And it all started with that trip through East Cleveland and going under the bridge and coming to this beautiful, beautiful building that still smells the same, looks the same, and is where I had my first performances in front of people, where now I’m able to speak in front of crowds of hundreds and hundreds of people without really being as nervous as I normally would be, because I had to play some of those pieces in front of all those people so many years ago.

Honestly, I don’t think I would be where I am if it weren’t for The Music Settlement. I don’t believe I would be as successful as I am. I don’t believe I could have gotten through art school, design school, and had such a great career that I still have.