Flea Has Kept a Free Music School Running for 25 Years

Kids who cannot afford lessons at the Silverlake Conservatory of Music can apply for a scholarship that covers the cost. That has been true since Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea helped open the school's doors in 2001, and it is still true twenty five years later.

The Music Department That Kept Him Out of Trouble

Flea, born Michael Balzary, picked up the trumpet as a kid in Los Angeles.

He has credited his public school's music department with steering him away from a difficult home life. "I grew up in LA public schools and was in the music department," he said. "It was really an important thing for my life, it gave me something to hold onto, and it was an important access for me. Without music I would've gotten into a lot of trouble and there are a lot of kids like me out there."

He later swapped the trumpet for bass and helped form Red Hot Chili Peppers at Fairfax High School in the early 1980s, but the debt to that school music program stayed with him.

When the Music Stopped in LA Schools

By the early 2000s, Los Angeles public schools had gone through severe cutbacks to arts education funding.

Flea and his childhood friend, musician Keith "Tree" Barry, decided to fill that gap themselves. In 2001, with the help of their friend Peter Weiss, the pair founded the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, a nonprofit school built to bring music lessons back to kids who no longer had them at school.

Barry, who met Flea in junior high, became the Conservatory's dean and spent two decades teaching there before stepping back from regular classes in 2020.

From Sunset Junction to Hollywood Boulevard

The Conservatory first opened near Sunset Junction, the strip where Sunset and Santa Monica boulevards meet in Silver Lake.

It grew steadily, adding ensemble classes, summer camps and workshops on top of its private lessons. In October 2016, after outgrowing that first space, the school moved into a redesigned 1930s brick building on Hollywood Boulevard, where it still operates today with thirteen teaching studios and a recital space.

Scholarships for Families Who Cannot Pay

The Conservatory's scholarship program covers free weekly one-on-one lessons, an instrument and supplies for students whose families cannot afford them.

Families qualify by showing proof of a free or reduced school lunch program or their tax records.

Twenty-Five Years and Still Going

In March 2026, the Los Angeles Times interviewed Flea inside the Conservatory itself, describing toddlers and parents gathered for a music and movement class as he walked through the halls.

He remains listed as a cofounder on the school's board. In 2026, the Conservatory is celebrating 25 years, including a public open house at its Hollywood Boulevard home.

Flea, now in his sixties, has spent the past three years relearning the trumpet himself, releasing his debut solo album in March 2026. The music that once kept a struggling kid out of trouble is still, by his own account, something he has never stopped reaching for.