Life

Guitar Academy expands offerings, scholarships and facilities

The Guitar Academy of Western North Carolina will expand into an additional 1,600 square fet of buildings space creating additional teaching studios.

By , Published: August 23, 2012

The Guitar Academy of Western North Carolina, l235 Duncan Hill Road, Hendersonville, has expanded its private lesson, group music classes, and scholarship opportunities for area music students this upcoming school year.

Known as an instructional studio for classical, electric, and acoustic guitar, the Guitar Academy has expanded its private instructional offerings with bass guitar, classical upright bass, drums/percussion, classical voice, commercial voice, piano, songwriting, violin, viola, and cello lessons.
All instructors have advanced degrees in their principal instrument with decades of performing and teaching experience.
A new ensemble program, started last year with two rock bands, a jazz duo, and an acoustic/classical guitar ensemble, has also expanded into new chamber opportunities for string students, directed by cello instructor, Brigid Hopkins.
"The addition of our string ensembles is a great complement to the Henderson County public schools strings program," said Mike Ridenhour, academy director. "It gives students an opportunity to participate and perform in smaller chamber configurations." Students do not have to be enrolled at the Guitar Academy for private lesson to participate in the ensemble program, however, a short audition is required for ensemble placement.
The Guitar Academy has also added a new strings program for elementary, middle, and high school students. Suzuki strings classes are offered twice a week. A Friday morning class is targeted for homeschoolers and a Monday after-school program is offered for those enrolled in traditional public and private schools.
The Guitar Academy is also offering private lessons in violin, viola, cello, and double-bass targeting elementary, middle, and high school string students.
A new Scholarship Fund has been established to help those students in need of financial assistance. The Guitar Academy Scholarship Fund is fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts group in New York. "Fractured Atlas helps private music schools as well as other arts related projects that do not have non-profit status a means to raise funds for their projects," said Ridenhour.
All monetary donations are tax- deductable and 94 percent of every donation goes to fund actual scholarships. Donations can be made to the Scholarship Fund from the Guitar Academy website at www.wncguitaracademy.com/scholarships.
Guitar Academy students are selling tickets for an all-you-can-eat Flapjack breakfast at Applebee's in Hendersonville. This breakfast will be from 8 to 10 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 15. All proceeds will go to the Guitar Academy Scholarship Fund. Tickets are $8 each and can be purchased online at www.wncguitaracademy.com.
The Guitar Academy is making plans to expand into an additional 1.600 square feet of building space that will include a new lobby/waiting area, three additional teaching studios, and much needed storage space. This expansion will bring the school's total square footage to approximately 3,200 square feet and will add space to the one existing teaching studio and 1,000 square foot performance space.
For more information on the Guitar Academy, visit www.wncguitaracademy.com or call 828-775-7841 to register.