Snohomish County entertainment
Music school keyed up

By Diane Wright
Times Snohomish County bureau

	KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES The Academy of Music Northwest's faculty includes, from left, Dorothy Klotzman, Dee Wells, Carol Macaulay and Jim Paul. The academy's new Lynnwood branch, which opened this week, uses classrooms owned by Kennelly Keys Music.
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LYNNWOOD — Carol Macaulay knows that the 4- and 5-year-olds she's placing in her theory and ear-training class may not have played a note yet, but she's looking for something else.

The music teacher wants to know if the students are ready to learn, whether they work well in a classroom environment and how they interact with others.

"Learning readiness, that's all I'm looking for," she said. "I'm not looking for great musical talent at that point. Because that talent might be revealed once you put them in that conducive environment."

That approach to early learning is part of music education at the Academy of Music Northwest, a private, nonprofit music school that opened a campus in Lynnwood this week.

In the seven years since the academy was founded in Bellevue, it has trained young musicians and prepared them for some of the nation's most prestigious music schools, including The Juilliard School, the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and the Eastman School of Music.

About the academy The Academy of Music Northwest teaches music theory, ear training, fundamentals of music, conducting, composition, performance, choral singing, children's choir and other programs for students of all ages, and has a pre-college program for ages 9 to 18 by audition. The academy's Lynnwood branch is at Kennelly Keys, 4819 196th St. S.W. Information: www.amnw.org or 425-778-7711.

"Because we don't have a lot of music schools, they are a source of connection with other serious music students," said Judy Baker, a private piano teacher with the Snohomish County Music Teachers' Association. "It's truly filling the gap. It's very professionally approached."

The academy had been asked for years by parents to add a branch that would serve its students north of King County.

"We have students from as far away as Marysville and families asking, 'Don't you have anything out here?' " academy co-founder Dee Wells said. "When Bill Kennelly built his headquarters in Lynnwood for all his stores for Kennelly Keys, we were told about him, and he's letting us use his two new classrooms."

For Kennelly, whose parents started Kennelly Keys Music in 1960 and who now has nine music stores from Everett to Tukwila, it was a good match.

"When Dee got in touch with us, it was fantastic," he said. "To take a serious music educational program like the Academy of Music Northwest and to bring it with us so that we could be almost partners in the area, it builds credibility for us that they trust us enough to be able to host their programs under our roof."

The academy and other community groups also will be able to use Roy's Place, a building adjacent to the store. Kennelly is remodeling the building, which housed racquetball courts, into a recital and rehearsal area, with bathrooms, coat racks and seating for 150 people. As an educational classroom, it can be used for clinics, workshops and private recitals. The sport courts are being soundproofed and rewired as rehearsal space for bands.

Tuition ranges from $15 per hour for adult-enrichment classes to $1,800 for the September-to-May pre-college program. As with most American preparatory music schools, half of the money to run the school comes from donations and half from tuition.

The donations and tuition pay teachers' salaries, rent and other overhead. Rent at Kennelly Keys is about 10 percent of tuition.

The 14-member core faculty includes Macaulay, a former instructor at the Manhattan School of Music; Dorothy Klotzman, a former director of the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College and an academy co-founder; and Jim Paul, who was an adjunct professor at San Diego State University and a music producer for National Public Radio. Paul is also president of the academy.

The academy has a children's choir and chamber orchestra with about 13 other chamber ensembles.

Wells described one of the academy's students, who just auditioned to go into his second year at The Juilliard School in New York.

"He competed with 400 pianists" for one spot, she said.

He made the cut. The lists of college and conservatory acceptances are important numbers.

"Ours is 100 percent," Wells said. "That's our job."

Pianist Eugenia Jeong, a student from Mukilteo, was one of 125 musicians selected from 6,500 around the world to participate in a Florida music festival in March. The Kamiak High School senior is applying to Eastman and Oberlin, both among the most prestigious music schools in the country.

In the Northwest, Wells said, early music training is imperative because of the highly competitive environment at major music schools and conservatories.

"They're big fish in a little pond here," she said. "When they audition for major music schools and conservatories, if they haven't had the same training as the people they're competing with, they aren't going to make it."

Diane Wright: 425-745-7815 or dwright@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company