Joy of Music School

Music Notes – Newsletter

Category Archives: Giving


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Our Solid Foundations

Applying for grants from charitable foundations is part of our regular routine here at the School. Sometimes we get the money we’re seeking and others we get a polite “not at this time.” Happily, this year has seen an upswing in gifts to JoMS from foundations. Peyton Manning’s PeyBack Foundation gave the most it has ever donated to us. Bonnaroo Works Fund matched its largest gift to us, which dates back to 2012. The Tennessee Arts Commission awarded us its largest sum in four years. We’ve also received new support from the Kinder Morgan Foundation. We are in the third year of an Arts Fund grant from the East Tennessee Foundation, the largest we’ve ever gotten from it. The Jeff Breazeale Foundation made a generous award described in these pages last year; it continues to support our work substantially.

We are always seeking new sources of foundation funding. To that end we are awaiting word from the CMA Foundation (the Country Music Association), and the Blackberry Farm Foundation. We hope to have more good news in the coming weeks from them. We are grateful to all the foundations that underwrite much of our volunteer teachers’ work with deserving children and teens. Thank you!

 

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A Very Well-Traveled Gift

violondelamort

A violin with an intriguing history has made its way across the world to the Joy of Music School. The story goes like this: During World War I, as invading forces threatened a small town near Paris, the violin was buried along with a French soldier, to protect it from certain pillaging. The violin’s maker had it exhumed after the war and eventually it was purchased by a woman named Miss Hannah, a Cincinnati Conservatory of Music graduate who taught violin (among other instruments) in 1930s and ‘40s Knoxville. She left it to her prize student Carol Ridenour, who passed away recently and left it to her son, David, with instructions to donate it to the Joy of Music School.

The journey isn’t quite over. We won’t consider it complete until the violin is in the hands of a deserving student. In its current condition, it is unplayable. But we’re hoping someone might help us get it restored and into the hands of a student here at the school. Restoration estimates range from $1,000 to $1,500.

 

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From Ebay with Love

Pat White

Pat White

Like many (if not most) guitarists, Pat White is a devoted collector. When he sees a really cool guitar, especially one that needs repair, he can’t help himself. He has to have it.

But Pat doesn’t hang onto these beautiful objects forever. Once he brings them back to life, he often donates them to the Joy of Music School.

We have received a dozen restored guitars from Pat in the past two years, a haul that would be worth something like $9,000 if we’d had to buy them.

“Pat has made such a difference in our guitar program,” says JoMS Executive Director Frank Graffeo. “Our kids’ eyes just light up when they see his beautiful handiwork on these amazing guitars.”

Pat buys his instruments on eBay and repairs them in his Knoxville basement. He has 13 guitar stands. So when he gets to 13 guitars, he knows it’s “time to cull the herd” to make room for new ones. That time is now. “I’ve got four here that I’m about to bring over the School,” he says.

A former distribution manager for UPS, Pat took up guitar when he retired nine years go. The bug bit him hard. “I get so excited when I see a new guitar,” he explains. “There’s something about the inherent beauty of a guitar’s design. How it feels to hold it. How it sounds.”

Happily for our students, those are feelings Pat is determined to share.


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Thanks Béla and Abigail!

Bela_Frank_Abigail

Béla Fleck, Francis Graffeo, and Abigail Washburn

World-class banjo virtuosos Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn are touring the U.S., performing for packed houses from coast to coast. Weeks before their Feb. 20 show at Knoxville’s Bijou Theatre, their tour staff reached out to the Joy of Music School to see if we’d like the net proceeds from the lobby merchandise sales of t-shirts, CDs, DVDs, et al. We gladly accepted their kind offer!

Béla, who in 2008 traveled to Africa to trace the banjo’s roots and create the award-winning documentary Throw Down Your Heart, went a step further. To boost merchandise sales (and their donations to our School), he announced from the stage that every merch buyer would get a raffle ticket in a drawing for an autographed banjo. It worked. At intermission, the audience lined up 30-deep in the Bijou lobby! We are honored and ever grateful to Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn, whose generosity netted the School nearly $2,200!


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Our Friend Emily Spreads the Joy

Emily

Fifth grader Emily Ford is a little kid with a big heart. As she was getting ready for her 10th birthday in November, she decided to do something different from the usual celebration. “I thought, ‘I don’t really need any more presents,’ ” Emily says. She encouraged her friends to make donations to the Joy of Music School rather than bring gifts to her party.

This wasn’t the first time Emily has been helpful to the School. She pitched in at our last two spring cleaning days along with her mother, Rachel Ford, Executive Director of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and JoMS board member. Emily, who plays the piano and violin, liked what she saw that day. “I thought it was cool that the School had free lessons for kids that might not have the opportunity,” she says.

Well, we think it’s extra cool that she would introduce her friends and their families to our School—and encourage them to donate. Thanks Emily!


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The Art of Giving

Painting

Elizabeth and Cindi Alpert

Fancy yourself an expert painter? Well, good, because neither do we! But that isn’t stopping us from getting super excited about the upcoming Painting for Joy event.

This extremely fun evening, a fundraiser for the Joy of Music School, takes place May 5, from 6 – 8 p.m.

The venue is Painting with a Twist’s new location in Farragut: 11000 Kingston Pike, Suite 3, right behind Pittsburgh Paints.

The event is a guided painting class combined with delicious food and wine, wonderful music and a spirited, supportive crowd. Even if you don’t know the first thing about painting, on this evening you will create a masterpiece that you will be proud to take home. Honestly!

Seats costs $35 per person, $25 of which goes to the Joy of Music School.

The evening is the brainchild of Cindi Alpert, JoMS board member and owner of radio station 106.1 FM The River. She suggests you reserve your tickets soon because seats are selling fast! Go to http://www.paintingwithatwist.com/knoxville and click on “view full calendar.” Scroll down to May 5 and you’ll find a link that will take you to a reservation form.


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How You Can Help

  • Ask your musician friends if they’d like to volunteer as a music mentor.
  • Donate a DSLR camera and/ or Final Cut Pro editing suite to our Music Production and Engineering for Teens class. They’re ready to shoot and edit music videos!
  • Sponsor or host a house party to benefit the School.
  • Come to our spring recital May 7. The kids need applause.
  • Volunteer to help serve food at the post-recital meal.
  • Check out our list of sponsors and thank them for their support.


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Be Like Ross!

Ross Dempster

Ross Dempster

The owner of Dempster Poured Foundations, Ross Dempster, heard our building needed a major foundation repair. Without hesitation he offered to fix the problem, which included digging a 100-foot trench along the building, waterproofing, installing a French drain and backfilling with gravel. It was a big project donated by a generous individual!

 

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Ring in the Holidays in Style

HSS2015

Get ready—it’s almost time for the Joy of Music School’s much-loved Holiday Sparkles & Spirits event. And this year, as we celebrate the 10th anniversary of HS&S, we’re taking it to the next level, with a beautiful evening in the Cherokee Country Club’s main ballroom.

The fun begins at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 8. The evening will feature heart-warming performances by Joy of Music School students and a dazzling array of gift ideas in our live and silent auctions. Out-of-thisworld wines! Beautiful jewelry! A wild game dinner! An Italian dinner (see page 4 for more details)! A condo in Vail Valley!

Your ticket price of $100 includes delicious heavy hors d’oeuvres and wine and, of course, goes to support the Joy of Music School. Please fill out and mail in the form at the right or, if you prefer, simply call the School at 865-525-6806 to reserve your spot now!


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Our Website Gets a Makeover

mobile JoMS

Does anything this cool ever happen in real life? You ask what something costs and instead of giving you the price, the seller offers it for free. That’s how the Joy of Music School got its new website. Executive Director Frank Graffeo asked Scott Brantley and Mary Byrne of Knoxville’s Umbrella Creative Group how much they would charge to build a new website for the School. These two remarkable people got back to him “within ten minutes of the email,” says Frank. Their price? Free. Gratis, on the house, zip, nada, pro bono. Frank couldn’t believe what he was hearing. As Scott explains: “Mary and I choose a nonprofit organization each year for this sort of donation. We had attended a fundraiser earlier in the year and knew about the work of the School, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity.” And are we ever grateful! The new site, still at http://www.joyofmusicschool.org, is up and running with many features the old site lacked. Perhaps most important, it works equally well on computers, tablets, and phones. So, that happened—in real life! Too cool for school? Not this one.


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How You Can Help

  • Read this newsletter. Then give it to someone else.
  • Spending time with loved ones this season? Tell them about the Joy of Music School!
  • Have everything already? Ask for donations to JoMS in lieu of holiday gifts.
  • Go to smile.amazon.com and name JoMS as your charity. Amazon gives a percentage of sales to our programs!
  • Bring your sweetheart to Holiday Sparkles & Spirits. Mwah!
  • Follow us on social media and share our news with your friends.