A friend gave me 50-yard-line tickets for a University of Tennessee Vols game last season and I was absolutely inspired … by the band! Wow! It was a thrilling sound from there—one you don’t get in the cheap seats. The game was good, too. We won (I think). The friend who gave me the football tickets didn’t expect I’d be more inspired by the Pride of the Southland Band than the football game—and neither did I. But that’s how it happened.

The children and teens at the Joy of Music School are no different from any of us when it comes to being inspired. We are all primed for it. It happens in expected, and unexpected ways. When we provide lessons, guidance and performance opportunities to our students here, we realize inspiration can happen in any situation we create for them, but we can never predict the exact moment. It might be when a teacher demonstrates a passage, or when a fellow student nails her solo, or when we provide a family tickets to the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, or when a student surprises even himself in a lesson. Kids from fortunate families can pay for all sorts of inspiring experiences. But in the eyes of the Joy of Music School, these experiences should be available to every young person who loves music. Why? Our motto says it all: “Because Inspiration Should Be Free.”

Will you help us keep inspiring our students? Every dollar you donate to the Joy of Music School helps put fresh strings on heavily used violins, replace worn-out guitar cases, buy a crisp new method book for a child’s first piano lesson, and more. A fundraising letter will arrive in your mailbox soon. Please help keep the inspiration free.

Sincerely,

 

 

 

Francis Graffeo

Executive Director