About us
Mission in Music Education
The Children’s Concert Society’s mission is to educate and enrich the lives of school age children in the greater Akron community by providing access to live high quality performing arts experiences.
Foster Music Appreciation
Opportunity to Experience
Encourage Young Musicians
Key Programs
Concert Hall Series
Children’s Concert Society has presented one or more series of concerts every single school year since its inception, and has faithfully fulfilled its mission of bringing live music to the children of our community by enriching their music education — we estimate over one million children have been introduced to the concert hall experience. For a nominal fee, students attend a professional performance including ballet, symphony orchestra, and opera in a concert hall. Due to scholarships and grants, no student is turned away for lack of ability to pay.
In School Concerts
Children’s Concert Society offers informal concerts free of charge to all public, private, parochial, charter schools and home school groups in Summit County and surrounding areas. The in school concerts represent a diverse offering of different types of music. Our programs supplement and enrich our students’ in school music education experience. Programming varies according to age group, and is structured to conform to curriculum guidelines.
Scholastic Composers Contest
To inspire the next generation of musicians CCS created the Scholastic Composers Contest for young composers to showcase their talents. Compositions are critiqued by a panel of judges from The Universty of Akron’s School of Music Composition Department. When CCS decided to encourage the creative composition of music by young children in 1953, it was the first in the country to have an annual Scholastic Composers Contest open to all students K-12.
Board & Staff
Children’s Concert Society is a volunteer managed organization.
2025-2026 Board of Trustees
Renee Pinsky, President & Treasurer
Suzanne Woods, Vice President
Kathleen Pichola, Secretary
Cheryl Boigegrain
Barbara Eaton
Molly Farmer
Dianne R. Newman
John Pickle
Vicki Smith
Marnie Wagner Walston
2025-2026 Associate Board
Sara Burky
Karrin Childs
Dr. Sally Childs
Rosemarie George
Mary Jean Lyon
Pat Miller
Jean Schooley
Marianne Uhl
Staff
Organization History
Children’s Concert Society is a non-profit educational, volunteer organization formed in 1947 to present quality music programs for pre-K through high school children during the school year. Since then, CCS has provided concert experiences of culturally diverse kinds of music from orchestra and opera to dance, jazz, folk and more creating over 2,000,000 musical memories for area children. Our programs reach approximately 25,000 public, private, parochial, charter and home school students annually in Summit County. These concerts might be the first and possibly only opportunity for many in our community to listen to different kinds of music in a live performance setting.
The first three concerts for the children of our community were given by the newly-formed Akron Symphony Orchestra during the 1947-48 school year. They were so enormously successful that, despite the demise of the orchestra, the women’s committee was determined to continue to provide musical pleasure and education to the school children of the Akron area. Accordingly, they formed a new organization–the Children’s Concert Society (CCS). CCS presented the Cleveland Orchestra from 1948 until 1975 and also presented concerts by the Akron Symphony Orchestra throughout its history.
CCS has an all-volunteer Board with one paid administrator. Except for minimal office and operating costs, CCS channels all funding into artistic productions. Through time, CCS has formed close collaborative relationships with schools, local Ohio artists and The University of Akron School of Music to connect children to music in our community. CCS brings the highest caliber of artistic talent to the expanding minds of children.