The Joy of Music School provides free lessons, instruments, music and materials to hundreds of Knoxville-area children who otherwise would do without. For more on the Joy of Music School, including how to volunteer, please visit www.joyofmusicschool.org
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Last year’s inaugural Swing for Joy golf tournament was a smashing success—so we’re thrilled to be bringing it back for 2018. The date is Monday, August 27, and the venue is the beautiful Gettysvue Golf & Polo Club. The cost: $100 a person. All proceeds benefit the Joy of Music School.
The action begins with a shotgun start at 9 a.m. There will be goodie bags for all, and multiple prizes, including a prize for the last place team! Make a hole in one and you could drive away with a new Denali or Yukon from Duncan Family Automotive or an awesome cart from Ladd’s Golf Carts!
After your round, Archer’s BBQ will provide a delicious lunch, along with exceptional beer from Fanatic Brewery, in the award-winning Gettysvue clubhouse. (Did you know it was recently named best clubhouse in Tennessee by Architectural Digest? It’s true!)
Last year’s event was “so much fun” and raised about $11,000 for the School, says Joy of Music School Executive Director Frank Graffeo. The tournament is the brainchild of our board president Cindi Alpert, who not only organized it but helped secure many of its generous sponsors. These include Cindi’s radio stations, 106.1 The River and Good Time Oldies 104.9, as well as AMS Corporation, Baker Donelson, Ladd’s Golf Carts and Knox County Sheriff-Elect Tom Spangler.
If all that isn’t enough to get you excited about the 2018 Swing for Joy event, consider this: the date – August 27 — happens to be the birthday of the Joy of Music School’s late founder, James A. Dick. What a way to celebrate this generous man’s legacy. Please call the School now to reserve your spot—or grab one of the few remaining sponsorships—at 865-525-6806.
See you at Gettysvue!
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The Joy of Music School family’s latest addition is Therese Bradbury, who joined our professional staff in April. Therese (pronounced thuh-REECE), is from Murphy, N.C., and comes to us by way of the Farragut West Knox Chamber of Commerce. She has a Bachelor of Science in applied mathematics, but describes herself as a “country girl.” Now there’s a combination! Therese will work in finance for the School. She also has the title of special events manager, taking on Ed Sublett’s role there as Ed slides into facilities management while continuing as manager of volunteers. Therese also plays the flute and hopes to start as a volunteer teacher as soon as she gets her rhythm in her new job. We’re so glad she’s here!
Also, we bid farewell to Susan Bolton, after eight and half years of service as school administrator and receptionist. She’s been at the front greeting, meeting, and spreading the Joy for so long that we fear people won’t recognize the School without her! We wish Susan all the best and will fondly remember her endearing presence as the face of JoMS, the giver of hugs, and owner of celebrity status among the kids as the distributor of star prizes.
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Do you like this newsletter as much as I do? To me, it has a unique combination of qualities one doesn’t commonly find together, like a mythical food that’s very tasty and yet very good for you. Imagine a sweet, gooey, delicious Cinnabon roll that somehow lowers your cholesterol and gives you six-pack abs. That’s how I see this quarterly. It’s full of stories that are fun and
interesting, while still informative and inspiring. I regard each issue with joy and read it with pride.
I’d be happy to take the credit for the quality of Music Notes, but that honor belongs to its editor. Sure, I write some articles, pull photos together, proofread, and am always free with opinions, but I’d never be able to produce such consistent quality on my own, year after year. That takes someone with a writer’s skill, dedication to his craft, experience, professionalism, and a love for the mission of the School. Fortunately for all of us, that person joined our board of directors 10 years ago, and jumped into editing this newsletter soon thereafter. This behind-the-scenes baker is Pete Finch, who donates all his time and wisdom. Pete’s other job for decades has been a professional writer and editor for major publications including SmartMoney, Business Week, Golf Digest, and Golf World magazines. He also is a multipublished author, and recently has been writing pieces for the New York Times. So, his position as editor of this newsletter is the equivalent of having Julia Child as your team’s sous chef on the Food Network’s “Chopped.” The result is something magical and delicious, and despite his resistance, it’s high time I reveal our secret ingredient.
Pete, I am deeply grateful.
Francis Graffeo
Executive Director
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Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends,” sang the Beatles. Our Executive Director Frank Graffeo found himself humming that tune recently, thanks to some help he got from our good friend Jonah Rabinowitz at the W. O. Smith Music School in Nashville.
Earlier this year Jonah showed Frank how to set up a new, super easy-to-use computerized data base for the Joy of Music School. The database, which uses the FileMaker Pro software program, is modeled on one Jonah has built at W.O. Smith over the past 20 years.
Finding a good program to consolidate and manage all our records has been a longtime struggle. “We continually met with roadblocks or malfunctions and couldn’t afford expensive computer coders and programmers to fix them,” says Frank.
“The problem with commercial database products is you get what they want you to track,” explains Jonah, who has
been executive director at W.O. Smith since 1995. “With our system, we can collect any kind of info we want.” For example: “Every teacher gets a roster of students,” says Jonah. “This program allows us with one stroke to look up that roster of students by name, what they worked on the previous semester, notes from previous teacher, and more.”
At a Berklee City Music Network function in Boston, Jonah showed Frank how he could access all of W.O. Smith’s data using FileMaker Pro – on his cell phone. “I was just blown away,” says Frank. Not long after, Jonah arrived for an afternoon in Knoxville to help the staff set up our own FileMaker Pro system.
Jonah describes himself as happy to help. “Anything that keeps Frank and his team away from their computer screens is a good thing,” he says. “We all spend way too much time doing paperwork.”
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Alex Oliver, CEO of Knoxville’s Draft Agency, has earned a lot of cred for his filmmaking. He holds several Addy Awards, and he made a film that hit No. 11 worldwide on the iTunes documentary charts. (It’s called Voyage and it’s about a boat trip from Knoxville to the Gulf of Mexico.) His company boasts clients like Clayton Homes, SeaRay, ORNL and more.
To our delight, Alex got wind of the Joy of Music School and was inspired to create a six-minute movie about what we do and why we do it. Alex and his Draft Agency sound and camera team followed staff, volunteers, and others for months. You’ve got to see it. Taber Gable, an illustrious Joy of Music School grad, is featured, among others. The storytelling, montage, and music from Alex’s imagination are sensational. Alex shared it with us in July. No charge. It’s for the kids of the School. See for yourself why we are so thrilled: https:// youtu.be/Jf54P6zzwv4
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Not all music is meant to be tuneful, hummable, or foot-tapping. Just listen to an adventure movie score, or the music behind a Tom & Jerry cartoon. Like creators of visual art, poetry, and dance, different musicians embrace different styles. A local ensemble with a national reputation embodies that notion. They even named themselves after the sounds we use to describe audio oddities. Eschewing bleep-blop, they chose Nief- Norf, and they celebrate experimental music.
Nief-Norf interacts with JoMS kids every year in a program they call Norf Speak, an interactive performance-workshop that involves young people in creating non-traditional music. In June they were at the School and, wow, was it eye-and ear-opening! Five Nief-Norfers introduced students and families to unusual contemporary music and modern notation techniques.
Our students then composed their own music, which the adults then played for everyone. The result? Bleeping and blopping dominated the day. Creativity without so many rules was the objective. That appealed to a lot of kids who otherwise might have been stymied by the stringent rules of standard music composition. The JoMS motto was in full force at Norf Speak. “Because inspiration should be free.” Mission accomplished.
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Remember 1998? The Tennessee Vols were college football’s national champs. E.R. was TV’s top-rated show. The search engine Google made its official debut.
It was also the year James A. Dick founded the Joy of Music School. Inspired by Nashville’s W.O. Smith Music School, which offers instruments and music lessons for a nominal fee, Mr. Dick began laying the foundation for our School with a series of meetings in 1997. He gathered community leaders, and together they plotted how it would all work. Mr. Dick, who made his fortune owning and operating radio stations, kick-started the School’s endowment with a big check. Importantly, he got many others to contribute as well.
In those early days, the School operated from a Boys & Girls Clubs building. It wasn’t long before we’d outgrown that tiny, 900-square-foot space, and in 2003 we moved into our current, 7,000-square-foot home— which we own.
Mr. Dick passed away in 2011. But his wife, Marilyn, continues to have a deep connection with the Joy of Music School and “remains an angel and an important ally for us,” says Frank Graffeo, who joined our board in 2001 and became executive director in 2005.
There have been innumerable high points in the School’s two decades. Among them: Former student Taber Gable got a four-year jazz piano scholarship at the University of Hartford and then went on to the Juilliard School Graduate Jazz Studies Program under Wynton Marsalis. Taber returned to Knoxville in 2015 for a performance that benefited the Joy of Music School.
In terms of our visibility, there was no bigger moment than the time we appeared on ABC-TV’s “Secret Millionaire” show in 2011. The episode showed a visit to the School by a wealthy businesswoman, Dani Johnson, who surprised us by making a $40,000 contribution. Frank Graffeo figures we’ve collected at least four times as much from other donors who saw the program and were inspired to give.
Today the School employs four full-time staffers, one part-timer and 116 volunteer teachers. We deliver music lessons to more than 200 Knoxville kids at our School every year, and almost a thousand more through our outreach programs.
So what’s ahead for the Joy of Music School? “Our enormous, ambitious goal is that one day, teachers (not students) will be the ones on our waiting list,” says Frank Graffeo. “A backlog of volunteers and an immediate match for every kid who applies.” We are also talking about adding a multi-purpose hall to our existing building, and in our long-term plans, we would love to help people create their own Joy of Music Schools in other cities around the world.”
We are confident Mr. Dick would like the sound of that.
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• Students we’ve taught: 2,617
• Volunteer teachers: 551
• All-time board members: 239
• All-time donors: 3,922
• New donors who saw us on “Secret Millionaire”: 308
• Miles from Knoxville for our most far-flung donation: 4,256 (Oslo, Norway)
• Students who’ve majored in music at college: 5
• Students who’ve come back to teach at JoMS: 4
• Most years as a volunteer teacher: 16 (Anthony Hussey)
• Groups we’ve applied to for grant funding: 150
• Groups that’ve said yes: 140
• Number of grants: 931
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It’s our 20th anniversary, and we want to connect with alumni. If you’re a former student of JoMS, please get in touch with us! We’d like to know your story. How did your time at the Joy of Music School change you? Are you in a music-related career? How did your teacher/mentor make a difference? At the very least we’d like to just keep in touch! You can message us through our Facebook page, or email us at info@joyofmusicschool.org.
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This year we celebrate two very special volunteer teachers whose service as mentors and instructors cross important anniversaries. Charles Parham has been teaching piano at JoMS for 10 years. He has also accompanied countless JoMS students on piano in numerous performances. Also, celebrating 15 years as a dedicated volunteer teacher is Maurie Douglas, an individual who started teaching at JoMS at the tender age of 18! We are ever grateful to these fine people.
Thank you, Maurie and Charles. You are an inspiration!
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Chloe and Caleb are twins, aged 17. She’s a drummer. He plays bass. They are the first JoMS kids to attend the Berklee College of Music’s Five-Week Summer Experience, an international gathering of young people to make music and develop talent in Boston. The pair auditioned via video, and were awarded tuition scholarships totaling $11,000. Room, board, and travel were covered jointly by the Youth Endowment Fund of the East Tennessee Foundation, and JoMS donors. Chloe texted, “I am in three rock ensembles where I learn songs over the five weeks for our final performances. I have become close friends with another drummer from California and we have been exploring Boston in our free time.”
She and her brother weren’t the only JoMS students trekking 925 miles from Knoxville to Boston this summer. Tevan, 18, a bass-trombonist, was accepted to the John Philip Sousa National High School Honors Band after a nationwide competitive audition. The band performed in Boston’s Faneuil Hall, and was conducted by Col. Jason Fettig, director of “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band. “Colonel Fettig was amazing – the best experience with a conductor I’ve had,” reports Tevan. “Boston is a beautiful city and has so much historical importance. The acoustics in Faneuil Hall were amazing!” Again, the Youth Endowment Fund and JoMS donors picked up all fees, travel and lodging for Tevan.
We are so proud of everyone, including the East Tennessee Foundation, and our donors—but especially these kids.
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Michael Combs never saw it coming. He had attended a few planning sessions for James A. Dick’s proposed Joy of Music School, and as is his nature, Michael asked good, thoughtful questions about how the School would function. But he never expected that at its first official board meeting, back in 1998, Mr. Dick would announce, “Our board president is going to be Michael Combs.”
“I gulped a little bit!” Michael says with a laugh, remembering that evening 20 years ago. “I mean, I was really supportive of Mr. Dick’s idea for the School, and I felt I couldn’t say no. But I was a Professor of Music at the University of Tennessee. I didn’t know anything about being a board president!”
Luckily he was surrounded by many people who did. Martha Weaver, director of development for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, encouraged him to set up board committees, he recalls. Bill Davis Sr., Mr. Dick’s lawyer, helped write the by-laws. CPA Jenny Hines handled most of the financial matters. “One of James Dick’s friends helped us get established as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization,” Michael recalls.
Michael served two three-terms and rotated off the board. He came back a few years later as a board member (not the president) and served another six-year term. At the moment he’s in the third year of another six-year run.
Michael is our only current board member who was there at the beginning.
His biggest surprise over the years? “James Dick and the rest of us thought we would just be giving clarinets or violins to kids and showing them how to play,” Michael says. “We didn’t realize what important friends and role models the volunteer teachers would be.”
He notes that Executive Director Frank Graffeo—who joined soon after Michael stepped down as board president—has emphasized character growth as well as musical accomplishment. “He’s created a system where they earn prizes for being on time, bringing their materials and instruments, practicing, and showing kindness and respect to their teacher. All that is built into program now, but it really took us by surprise.”
And Michael’s greatest pleasure? “It’s always been the children,” he says. “I remember when the first one finished at the School and went to UT. He is Preston Sangster. He is a bassoon player, and he got a scholarship. We all turned around and said, ‘Look at what we’ve done!’ Those moments were very, very special for us.”
Joy of Music School 