There are plenty of reasons why music is important to everyone, it can raise someone’s mood, get them excited, or make them calm and relaxed. No matter what culture we are from, everyone is touched by it.
It inspires creativity, brings people together, improves focus and memory and especially over the last few years can ease anxiety and discomfort. From learning an instrument to playing in a band or finding your voice the ways to explore music are endless. We are excited to bring a little music your way by introducing
The Academy of Music and Performance as our This Is My Downtown Business this month.
Knowing the importance and impact music has on almost everyone’s life, in a million different ways, The Academy of Music & Performance was founded in October 2018 by Ryan Jarvis and Joe O’Connor. Sean McAllister joined the teaching roster in early 2019 and joined the owners’ partnership in the fall of 2021.
“Recognizing the privilege of being gifted the opportunity, resources, and support by family, friends, community programs resulted in an in-depth, theoretical and practical understanding of music that we all wanted to share with the community.”
Throughout their musical pasts Ryan, Joe and Sean gained a feeling that they had a duty to extend and in still that knowledge in the minds of not only a new and younger generation of musicians within Brantford, Brant County, The Six Nations of The Grand and further surrounding area, but anyone willing or wanting to learn. This is what the Academy was built on and they still feel exactly the same way today.
Offering a relaxed and creative environment alongside a welcoming space to have fun while learning to make music, The Academy also prides itself on the fact that all three owners, as well as many of the teachers, have real-world, professional experience in the music industry. “This helps us to guide our students, if they are interested, through the ins and outs of the industry. Many other teaching studios cannot and do not offer this.” Ryan has toured extensively with his band Youthinasia, Joe was a founding member of the Ascot Royals and has played in the studio alongside well-known acts and Sean has worked for 20 years scoring music for film and television.
“We believe our experience puts our studio a step above the others. We are also currently building a recording studio which is another aspect of music production that will be helpful in our student’s development.”
Their centralized downtown location provides easy and fairly quick access to music lessons for Brantford and the county, their services include:
-One-on-one music lessons including Piano, Guitar, ukulele, bass, drums, banjo, mandolin, violin and voice.
-Music theory, Songwriting and production consulting
-Live performance education and consulting
-Band jam nights
-Band rehearsal space to rent
-Music Industry Navigation consulting
-Coming soon they will be offering recording services
The Academy is open year-round and offers lesson openings during the day as well as in the evening. During the pandemic instead of just singing the Blues, they started to offer online lessons to their students and continue to do so if requested.
When I asked the impossible question to them about their current favourite band, song, or genre these days the response was as I assumed; “That’s a really tough question! We listen to almost everything because our students ask for almost everything! But we are all classic rock fans with some punk, jazz and classical thrown in for good measure!”
So whatever your jam The Academy of Music and Performance has you covered. It is never too late to learn something new so don’t be shy, reach out for a lesson… your roommates will thank you!
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