–Cameron, age 10
“I want to learn the trumpet at the Joy of Music so I can play in high school and TSU band.”
Category Archives: Community
How You Can Help
- Spread the word!
We need teachers
like never before.
- Sign up for Swing for
Joy. Even beginners
can enjoy this
tourney.
- Share our social
media posts. They do
a lot for our visibility.
- Volunteer for
our committees,
especially special
events.
- Be Like Adam!
Adam Woldt, pastor of the Point Church in Knoxville, opened his doors to our Spring Recitals in May, our first in-person recitals in four years. Even more awesome: It’s the same building that had hosted our recital from 2012 to 2015! It was great to be back, Adam!
Carla’s Passion for Helping Others
We see kids do amazing things every day, and the music they make is only the beginning. This is especially true for one student, Carla, who is a student in our Music Production and Engineering for Teens course and takes saxophone lessons with Caleb Lukkarila, a former JoMS student-turned-instructor.
Carla has always had a passion for helping others. Anywhere she went, she would stop to give pocket change to those in need when their paths crossed. Eventually, she began bringing change along with her, and even some of her favorite snacks, always ready to give to those in need. In 2021, at age 13, she founded Lizzy’s Pocket Change Ministry, a nonprofit that allows her to take her passion for helping others from pocket change to community-wide impact. (“Lizzy” is Carla’s nickname.)
Today, Lizzy’s Pocket Change distributes care packages to unhoused members of the community on a regular basis. These packages are filled with nonperishable food, hygiene items, and notes of encouragement. Carla is an inspiration who is making a powerful impact our community, and we are proud to be a part of her world. The budding saxophonist’s kind heart and selfless acts show that even a little pocket change can create meaningful change for others.
A-One, And a-Two, And a-Three!
The Joy of Music School celebrated our successful 2022-2023 year of lessons and classes with not one, not two, but three Spring Recitals!
We were very pleased to return to the former First Christian Church, now known as the Point, for our Marilyn and James Dick Memorial Spring Recital on Saturday May 6. Forty-nine students performed, including the Introduction to Music Classes and the Baritone Ukulele Classes, followed by a buffet taco bar dinner in the fellowship hall.
Students and teachers who meet for their lessons online were featured on May 8 on Zoom. Seven students performed their selections on violin, piano and guitar. Joy of Music volunteer teachers who continue to teach on Zoom, some of whom are even out of state, were thrilled to enjoy their students’ performances from a distance.
On May 9 the JoMS Spring Strings Recital featured our violin students taught by the University of Tennessee School of Music String Pedagogy Class. These UT students teach for credit at JoMS and are supervised by Professor Hillary Herndon. Seven violin students performed along with an alto saxophone duet, who played The Second Waltz by Dimitri Shostakovich. It was quite the fun closer to a remarkable recital series!
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Helping Us Share Our Message
One of our board members has teamed up with one of our most generous donors to create a special series of videos to help spread the word about our School.
Clay Prewitt, a group creative director at the Tombras advertising agency, is producing the videos, and the star is Whitney Mitchell, founder and owner of Pipe Wrench Home Services.
In the videos, Whitney talks about the future of youth in our community — and how learning music is good for their character, teaches them discipline and increases their confidence in themselves. As Clay puts it: “Music isn’t just learning to play a melody, it’s learning a lot about life.”
“When I heard about the Joy of Music School, I just knew I wanted to be a part of that,” says Whitney. “Our children are our future, and anything we can do to help them become more well- rounded is so important.”
The footage was shot by Knoxville documentary film maker Edy Recendez and features interviews with Whitney and JoMS Executive Director Frank Graffeo. It also includes some shots of our students and their instructors during lessons at the School.
The plan is to create spots of varying length that can run on TV, social media, YouTube, our website, at public events and so on. Clay figures they’ll be edited and ready for viewing in the late summer/early fall, so keep your eyes out for them.
Thanks to Clay and Whitney for making this possible!
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Doing Our Part to End Opioid Abuse
The School is a founding member of the Knoxville Area Mentoring Initiative (KAMI), a coalition of youth- mentoring organizations. These organizations work to improve the lives of young people in economically hard-hit areas. KAMI organizations benefit from U.S. Department of Justice funding support in areas most affected by America’s opioid crisis, which includes East Tennessee. Along with this financial support comes a mandate to provide information and awareness opportunities for KAMI mentors and staffs.
One such event took place in July in our building, entitled, “The Scope of the Opioid Problem.” Jessica Stanley of the Metro Drug Coalition and Lieutenant Josh Shaffer of the Knoxville Police Department shared the podium and delivered an impactful and informative presentation on the opioid epidemic and its influence on youth in areas served by the Joy of Music School and others.
“We received training and information ranging from what to do in the event of an overdose to a description of the illegal drug trade doing so much damage Tennessee,” says Executive Director Frank Graffeo. JoMS Development and Marketing Manager Hannah Lozano, who has extensive training in social work, adds, “Jessica and Lt. Shaffer showed us just how hard we need to fight back to protect the young people we serve. And music mentoring is our chosen way among many.”
Grateful for Our Grants
The United Way of Greater Knoxville last year awarded funding to our School through a grant program designed to support outcome-based initiatives such as our music-based mentoring program. Along with the award, the Joy of Music School became an official partner agency of the United Way! We are excited and grateful to announce that this funding has been extended to continue into the new fiscal year.
Thanks to the East Tennessee Foundation for supporting our summer programming and to the City of Knoxville for supporting us through its Community Agency Grant program, which aims to maximize community resources. This partnership has been crucial over the years and continues to help us serve our community. We appreciate the City’s focus on arts and culture in their support of community resources!
We are ever grateful to our stalwart foundation supporters, including the Tennessee Arts Commission (which is giving us substantially more this year than ever before), Knoxville Leadership Foundation (championing our mentorship program), and the Arts and Cultural Alliance (supporting capacity-building). We could not do our work without the generosity of these incredible organizations.
Performing With the Legendary Yo-Yo Ma!
Joy of Music School violin student London recently shared the stage with world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma as part of an extraordinary experience in Knoxville.
The occasion was Return to Your Roots, a festival in late May that was organized by the remarkable Kim Smith, who has two kids in our School, and presented by Our Common Nature, a weeklong celebration of Appalachian voices. We are so grateful for the Smith family’s kindness in sharing indigenous culture, tradition, and food with the community, and for inviting a fellow Joy of Music School student to perform.
The Yo-Yo Ma performance took place at the UT Mound, a sacred Cherokee site revered for nearly 2,000 years. In addition to our student London and Yo-Yo Ma, the Raven Rock Dancers performed. “I was so excited to get this amazing opportunity to hear Yo-Yo Ma perform and actually play my violin at the same event,” says London. Adds her mother, Melanie: “We are so thankful that London has been able to have consistent instruction in violin over the past seven years.”
Opportunities like these are the result of the hard work and dedication of many people and could not be possible without our volunteers who provide access to high-quality music education and mentoring. London’s violin teacher, Dr. Miro Hristov, is a tenured professor at the University of Tennessee who volunteers his time to teach students at the Joy of Music School.
Letter from the Executive Director
Hello again! You may have missed our newsletter since the last one in October. It’s back. Oh, and I’m back too—since December. I am so happy and energized to be here again, and with a renewed energy to make this amazing School the best it can be. The Joy of Music School is quickly building momentum (see the rest of this newsletter), and keeping the focus on the main thing: our students. While my 10 months in Chicago were a mixture of challenge, uplift, and education, the personal effect of my time away from home solidified my connection—once seemingly lost—to this amazing place. Fortune smiled on Christy, Enzo and me, and we are back in our beloved Knoxville. Christy is diving back into the music scene, playing viola in her quartet, and in orchestras across the state. Enzo, now 18, is headed to Tennessee Tech to major in engineering and minor in cello this fall. I reminisce about workdays at JoMS in 2005, my first year, with baby Enzo snoozing in his car carrier next to my desk! But now we’ve all grown up a bit, and the workdays are focused on recruiting volunteer teachers, and informing families about the life-changing opportunity that tuition-free music training offers their children.
Francis Graffeo
Executive Director
It’s Tee Time in Tennessee
Our seventh annual Swing for Joy fundraising event is coming up fast, and it looks to be bigger and better than ever. The date is Tuesday, Sept. 19 and the venue is a new one for us — the popular and highly rated Egwani Farms Golf Course in Rockland, about a 15-minute drive from downtown Knoxville.
Registration begins at 11:30 and the cost is $125 per player, or $500 for a foursome. That includes lunch, beverages, prizes and golf!
Unlike some other fundraiser tournaments, we limit our participation to 80 players, which means that the round will move along quickly. It’s a scramble format, ensuring that players of all levels — even true beginners — can contribute to their team and have FUN!
A few sponsorships remain available, some for as little as $100, according to event co-chairs Cindi Alpert and Trey Coleman. For tickets and more info, please visit joyofmusicschool.org. See you at the course!
A Tee-rific Time Was Had By All
Tiger Woods winning the Masters was the biggest golf moment of 2019, you say? Ok, perhaps. But our annual Swing for Joy golf fundraiser was a close second!
We had a wonderful turnout under sunny skies at the Gettysvue Polo, Golf & Country Club on Monday, Oct. 14. There were 68 golfers total, competing for trophies and prizes such as gift certificates and golf equipment.
Best of all, the day of golf and celebration event raised more than $12,000 for the Joy of Music School.
Swing for Joy is the brainchild of Cindi Alpert, our soon-to-be former board president (see page 3). She nearly made a hole-in-one that day but settled for a “Closest to the Hole” prize when her ball stopped about three inches from the cup.
“We had a lot of new golfers this year,” says Cindi. “People who were new to the event and new to the Joy of Music School.”
Part of the credit for that belongs to Cindi herself. She’s the owner of two radio stations, 106.1 The River and 104.9 Q-Country. They sponsored Swing for Joy and gave the event some very helpful promotional airtime leading up to the big day.
Special thanks to our other Swing for Joy sponsors, including presenting sponsor Pipe Wrench Plumbing, Heating & Cooling, Archer’s BBQ (caterer of our delicious lunch), AMS Corp., Tennessee Insurance Services, Knoxville Pediatric Associates and Baker Donelson. Hole-in-one prizes were offered by Duncan Automotive and Ted Russell Ford.
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How JoMS Is Fighting Drug Abuse
Starting next year, the Joy of Music School will be part of an important new program combatting opioid abuse in our region.
The School got involved—and got $50,000 in funding for the program—through its membership in the Knoxville Area Mentoring Initiative. KAMI, as it’s known, is a creation of the Knoxville Leadership Foundation and includes the YMCA of East Tennessee, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of East Tennessee, the Joy of Music School, and Girls on the Run of Greater Knoxville.
The money will go toward educating our staff and music mentors about the opioid crisis, plus training them to help families who may need assistance. The training will be ongoing, says Dan Myers, vice president of advancement for the Knoxville Leadership Foundation.
It’s all part of a program called Operation Prevention, which is a joint effort of the Drug Enforcement Agency and Discovery Education, a unit of Discovery Communications.
The funding is a federal grant from the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Securing that grant was a huge, highly competitive undertaking, notes Dan. “Anytime you can get a federal grant,” he adds, “it’s very exciting.”
Meet the Multitalented Mary Jane
JoMS student Mary Jane is just a kid, but she already has a lot of arts experience!
She performs as a Hawaiian and Tahitian dancer with her mother, Tilini, and her two brothers.
She’s an actor, too. Mary Jane has taken classes at Knoxville Children’s Theatre, and this year you can see her as Belinda Cratchit in “A Christmas Carol” at the Clarence Brown Theatre. (She did a monologue and sang “Climb Every Mountain” for her audition.)
Mary Jane also shoots short digital videos with her older brothers. Her dad, Ben, says they specialize in “jump scares” — that is, moments that make viewers jump out of their seats with fright.
She’s taking the general music class at our School, plays violin, and wants to learn piano.
Did we mention that Mary Jane is only 6? Amazing! She’s got a wonderful set of talents and an excellent attitude, and we can’t wait to see where they lead her.
Broadcasting Live from JoMS
The Joy of Music School has radio in its DNA. Our late founder, James Dick, is a Knoxville broadcasting legend, who started WIVK and spun that into Dick Broadcasting, owner of multiple stations. So when we had a live radio show broadcasting from the School recently, we felt his presence to be sure.
The Swain Event, a sports talk show on WNML The Sports Animal, set up shop here early one morning in October. The host, Jayson Swain, is a bona fide Vol football hero. His guests, JoMS Executive Director Frank Graffeo, and JoMS administrative volunteer Jaye Rochell (who also played Vol ball), were on air to promote the Tall Paul 30th Anniversary concert (see above), which raised funds for the School.
Frank peppered his interview with a few footballrelated stories. (He was childhood friends with the Mike Ditka family, sold concessions at Texas Stadium in high school, and lived near three Dallas Cowboys as a kid, for example.) But mainly he kept the JoMS thread going, making parallels between music mentoring and sports coaching. Jaye talked about his days as a wide receiver under Coach Butch Jones, and also about his work volunteering at JoMS. School friend and supporter Andy Jeffers of Sports & Entertainment Media made the whole interview possible, drawing on his extensive media contacts, his love for the School, and his friendship with Tall Paul.
These extraordinary individuals joined together to help spread the word via radio about the School, and got us some valuable air time. That’s something to cheer about. And James Dick would sure be proud.
Joy of Music School 