Famous people's places / Detroit – Cultural Center
Detroit Institute of Musical Arts
Closed – archive entry · 1970
A private music conservatory that trained singer Freda Payne as a teenager in the 1950s before merging into a successor school in 1970.
01 / The story of this place
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The Detroit Institute of Musical Arts was a private conservatory that opened in 1914, offering instrumental, vocal and theory training and for a time granting its own performance diplomas. Singer Freda Payne, later a Motown-era hit-maker with 'Band of Gold,' studied music here as a teenager in the 1950s before pursuing a professional career. In 1957 the school moved into new quarters at 200 East Kirby Street, at the corner of John R Street in Detroit's Cultural Center. By 1970 the Institute merged with the Detroit Music Settlement School to become the Detroit Community Music School, which later passed through the College for Creative Studies and, since 2000, has continued as Marygrove College's Institute of Music and Dance.
- Private music conservatory that opened in 1914
- Singer Freda Payne studied here as a teenager in the 1950s
- Moved to 200 East Kirby Street in the Cultural Center in 1957
- Merged into the Detroit Community Music School in 1970
- Its lineage continues today as Marygrove College's Institute of Music and Dance
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 1
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Freda Payne born 1942 · singer, actress
Studied here
Detroit music school she attended as a teenager.
Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25
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03 / Events
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