Fall Newsletter 2021

November Newsletter 2021

May 3, 2022

Dear Supporters of the Missouri Academy of Music,

Maria and I wanted to give you the latest news on the activities of the Missouri Academy of Music as we come to the end of the first month of making music together. It has been an incredibly exciting time. We have 40 students enrolled in our first semester – YES Forty Students! They range in age from ten to seventeen.

Our young group the Sinfonietta has just four members but that is an ideal number for a quartet! And we have enjoyed playing together with myself, Mara and Renan sitting in and coaching them. They certainly get a lot of personal attention! The older group the MAM Virtuosi has 35 members and we have had three rehearsals with the large ensemble and two days of chamber music coaching. We have 8 different chamber music groups playing a range of music from Dvorak, Mozart and Haydn quartets, as well as music from film and the American Songbook. After just three weeks they already sound wonderful. Rich full sound and some real virtuoso playing.

Our Coaching staff is almost complete now with Renan Leme, my Music Assistant and Holly Piccoli working with the violins, Preston Roberts coaching the violas, Joseph Choi my Assistant Conductor and chamber music coach, and Chloe Trevor will be joining us virtually and in person for enrichment and some coaching from time to time. We are expecting to add a sixth coach to help with our bass section as well as chamber music. The beginning of a new enterprise like this involved getting a lot of new equipment and securing facilities for rehearsals as well as concerts. We are so grateful to Broadway Christian Church for giving us use of the church each and every Tuesday and supporting us in our mission.
Maria and I have been busy buying and putting together 30 music stands and a music stand rack, which has qualified us for technicians of the year. You should see Maria with a ½ inch socket wrench!! We also bought a new double bass so that bass players can always have an instrument at our rehearsals. We have also been buying up a lot of new music for both the large ensemble and for the chamber music groups. We are happy to be able to offer scholarships to those who need them and we have awarded eight scholarships so far. We have been fortunate to have received 2 donations just towards scholarships.

Other important developments, our website is live, I do hope that many of you have visited the site to see our activities. We also have an Instagram account, find us under @missouri.academy.of.music , and we will be adding a Facebook page shortly.

Young Hearts Program
We have managed to reach out to a number of agencies for our Young Hearts Program and this fall we have already 3 performances in three different locations.
November 12 Candlelight Lodge Senior Living
December 14 Terrace Retirement Community
December 15 Lenoir Senior Living Community
These performances involve large and small groups playing for residents either in a community room or in their homes or apartments.

Save the Date
We also have 2 major formal performances this fall.
November 5 7:30 Broadway Christian Church
Joint Concert with Collegedale Academy from Chattanooga TN
November 20 7:30 Broadway Christian Church
Winter Concert with all ensembles preforming, including music by Rimsky-Korsakoff, Vivaldi, Rachmaninov, Dvorak, Mozart, Haydn and Joplin.

Open House
We would like to invite you all to attend an Open House during our rehearsal time on Tuesday October 12 from 6.30 – 8.15.
You will have the opportunity to listen to any of the chamber music coaching as well as watch the large ensemble rehearsal in the Music Center at Broadway Christian. There will be refreshments for all, so mark you calendars and come and see what we do each week.

Become our Academy Angel - We are pleased to say that we have received our 501(c)3 status from the IRS, so we can accept tax deductible donations. We have already received 5 major donations that have helped us get everything up and running. As I am sure you are aware, tuition alone cannot cover the costs of running a program like this. Our costs include coaching and artistic staff, scholarships, facilities, music, equipment, website and marketing. Our tuition income only comes to about $10,000 a year. Therefore, we rely on the generosity of supporters and people who share our vision that our young musicians have a real role to play in bringing the healing gift of music to those who cannot get to hear live performances in the traditional venues. Their gift of music in service to the community will make our region better, and make our students finer citizens.

We are looking for general and specific donations if any of you would be interested in supporting us for these needs:

Enrichment Program $2500 a year (monthly lectures and master classes)
Coach sponsor $1000 per semester
New music sponsors $60 per piece
Pizza for all students during our rehearsals $600 per semester/$50 a week

Remember all donations are tax deductible as allowed by law. We would love to include all our donors in our concert programs on November 5 and November 20. If you are interested in becoming a donor or sponsor, just drop us an email and pledge an amount and we will get you in the program. We just ask for the donation to arrive before the end of the year.

Make your donations to:
Missouri Academy of Music
108 Dayspring Drive
Columbia MO 65203

That is all the news we have for now, but I do hope we get to see you at our Open House and of course at some or all of our upcoming concerts starting on November 5th together with the Collegedale Academy from Tennessee and our Winter concert on November 20th.

With warmest wishes
Kirk and Maria Trevor