The renowned, 19th century piano virtuoso, William Hall Sherwood founded the Sherwood Music School in Chicago, Illinois in 1895 within the Fine Arts Building (410 South Michigan Avenue; now 430 South Michigan Avenue). With the vision of increasing accessibility to music education in America, Sherwood founded his own school to foster professional musicians. After Sherwood’s death in 1911, his pupil, Georgia Kober became the president. Under her leadership, the school continued to grow and established an Extension Division in 1913 to manage its correspondence courses throughout the country.

With the addition of the Extension Division, the School affiliated teachers throughout the country to teach the “Sherwood Method” to piano students and the Sherwood Music School was able to implement its education at a broader scale. By 1928, then Vice President Arthur J. Llewelyn accumulated piano lessons, studies, exercises, tests, and compositions into a series of lesson books for varying skill grades. By 1937, a series of Violin Lessons were also written and available for affiliated teachers. As a member of the National Association of Schools of Music, Sherwood Music School (later, Sherwood Conservatory of Music) offered accredited music degrees to its students.

In 1985, the School rebranded itself as the Sherwood Community Music School, no longer offering music degrees and instead proffering music programs and lessons for the Chicago community. In 2007, Columbia College Chicago purchased the school to become a campus center promoting lifelong involvement and development in music. The Sherwood Community Music School at Columbia College Chicago acted as a center for community music education, providing programs and lessons for musicians of all ages and continuing education opportunities for educators. With the creation of the Office of Continuing and Community Education at Columbia College Chicago in Spring 2016, the Sherwood Community Music School became nested within the hierarchy of this office. By Fall 2017, the Office of Continuing and Community Education had assumed all Sherwood’s courses and programs.

William Hall Sherwood (1854-1911) was a late 19th and early 20th century American pianist and music educator who, after having studied in Europe with notable musicians, became one of the first renowned piano performers in the United States.

Sherwood was born on January 31, 1854 in Lyons, New York to Reverend Lyman H. Sherwood and Mary Bales Sherwood. At age nine, Sherwood began attending his father’s music school, the Lyons Musical Academy in Lyons, New York. Due to his rapid progression, Sherwood began teaching younger students at the Lyons Musical Academy in 1866. With encouragement from his private teacher, William Mason, Sherwood travelled to Europe in 1871 to study piano and music with various virtuosos including, Theodor Kullak, Carl Friedrich Weitzmann, Ludwig Deep, Ernst Friedrich Richter, Richard Wuerst, and Franz Liszt.

Sherwood returned to the United States in May 1876, where he became an established performer and music educator. He made his performance debut with the Theodore Thomas Orchestra at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After his concert tours, Sherwood began teaching full time including at the Chautauqua Institution’s Summer Music School Festival (Chautauqua, New York), the New England Conservatory of Music (Boston, Massachusetts), and the Conservatory of Music (Chicago, Illinois). In 1895, Sherwood left his position at the Conservatory of Music to establish his own school, the Sherwood Music School, at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Illinois.

While managing and teaching at his own school, Sherwood also acted as head of the piano faculty for the Siegel-Myers Correspondence School of Music. In 1906, Sherwood began writing lesson plans, exercises, studies, and compositions for piano for distance students learning piano methods by mail order. These correspondence courses in piano by Sherwood served as the foundation for the Sherwood Music School when the administration chose to standardize the texts for its Extension Division. Sherwood remained the President of his school and the Director of the Piano Department at Siegel-Myers until his death on January 7, 1911 when he passed away after suffering a stroke that November.