Boston musicians feeling at home at new rehearsal studios created after closure of Allston’s Sound Museum

Inside a spacious second-floor room within the former Beasley Media Group constructing in Dorchester, Boston-based musician Jeison Peguero has spent the previous few days acclimating to his new rehearsal studio.

The room is embellished with flags from Peguero’s native Dominican Republic, footage of his music idols, a sofa, rug, keyboard and extra objects — proof the 26-year-old Boston resident is amped up for all times after Allston’s Sound Museum rehearsal studios closed in late January.

Peguero and a whole lot of musicians have spent the previous week transferring into an interim music rehearsal web site that includes 88 studios at 55 Morrissey Blvd., an area that appears to fill the void left by the Sound Museum closure which displaced at the very least 800 musicians.

“I feel like I have a lot of support from the city,” Peguero informed the Herald on Saturday. “I really put time into teaching and showing that music is this thing that could save people and help them find themselves and triumph in life. This studio shows the progress.”

Peguero by no means rented a studio on the Sound Museum, however he’d typically go there both to take heed to pals who had been in bands or report his personal music with different friends. They had been left devastated when the property at 155 North Beacon St. was bought in December to IQHQ, a business realtor trying to flip the positioning right into a life science campus.

The Art Stays Here Coalition — artists, musicians and advocates that work to stop arts and cultural displacement all through Greater Boston — rapidly discovered the vacant 55 Morrissey Boulevard constructing and chosen nonprofit The Record Co. to function the area.

The Record Co. reworked the 40,000-square-foot former house of a number of Boston-based radio stations, which moved to Waltham final May, into a mixture of small and enormous rehearsal studios in simply six weeks.

The Dorchester property is simply short-term as the positioning is slated for redevelopment in two years, however musicians, like Peguero, are welcoming the brand new studio area as a wanted refuge.

More than 300 musicians have already visited the studios for the reason that March 3 opening, with a number of hundred extra anticipated to make use of the area within the coming days and weeks, mentioned Matt McArthur, founder and govt director of the Record Co.  Roughly 65% of the studios from the Sound Museum have at the very least some illustration at 55 Morrissey.

The Sound Museum isn’t the one rehearsal area that has closed within the metropolis.

The Berwick Building in Roxbury additionally lately shuttered, and Charlestown Rehearsal Studios is vulnerable to closure, with a portion of the constructing already repurposed into cupboard space, mentioned Sasha Pedro, common supervisor of 55 Morrissey.

“There’s really never been an artist space like this on the southern side of Boston,” Pedro mentioned. “The musicians down here have been traveling to Allston, Somerville and Charlestown to rehearse, but now that we’re down here, we’re able to serve a community that hasn’t been served in this way for a while, at least.”

The New England Musicians Relief Fund has made a $12,000 dedication to assist musicians from the Sound Museum relocate to 55 Morrissey. Those funds are going towards transferring vans to haul over devices and different gear, mentioned Joseph Wang, clerk for the nonprofit that began to assist musicians amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The fact that this place is alive and as vibrant, full, noisy and joyful as it is today is tremendously gratifying,” Wang mentioned. “It’s something that we need to see more of.”