All that glitters is guild

Published 5:00 am Saturday, April 16, 2005

Island Music Guild fetes its new location with a full day of gigs.

In the back of every music student’s mind, Norm Johnson believes, there should be a vision.

It should take place on a stage.

So the Island Music Guild’s new hall at Rolling Bay is arranged very deliberately: walk through the front door, and the first thing students will see is a riser and a microphone.

“The purpose of music lessons is performance,” said Johnson, the guild’s director, “whether you play in your living room for your family, or onstage for an audience.

“I want (students) thinking, ‘I’m taking lessons today so I can be on that stage in the future.”

For the IMG – a 7-year-old nonprofit organization dedicated to the island’s musical arts – the stage is set. The group has been moving into a newly renovated 4,000-square-foot space off Valley Road, behind the auto repair center, after nearly a year of organizational diaspora.

“It’s been kind of a scary period for us, because the guild has been fragmented,” Johnson said. “I felt concerned that we would lose membership, but I feel a sense of cohesiveness. Now that we have a home, we’ll be able to meet face to face (again).

“Membership has actually grown since we left the last building, which surprises me,” he added. “I don’t know what to expect now.”

Founded in 1998 by a half-dozen local instructors as the Island Music Teachers Guild, the group was previously located on Winslow’s Madison Avenue but lost its lease in early 2004.

The new locale comes courtesy of landlord Mark Julian, a longtime Eagledale resident who recently retired from the boat-repair business to a life of property management.

Julian was about to close up his shop last year when he read of the guild’s plight in the local newspaper; he called Johnson to say he had space coming available at Rolling Bay, and the two met that same day.

“I fell in love with it immediately,” Johnson said of the space. “Even though it was full of engines and machines for boat repair, it had potential.”

The arrangement also suited Julian, whose children had taken lessons from guild instructors.

“I could see this would be a perfect place for them, given some time and effort,” Julian said.

The parties agreed to a 10-year lease, and Julian proceeded to renovate the building from floor to ceiling.

It now boasts six individual instruction and rehearsal spaces and a larger classroom, a music library, an office and kitchenette. Each area is wired for digital cable and DSL – and for microphones as well, so the whole hall can be used as a giant recording studio.

“We figure there’s a mile and a half of cable that we all strung,” Johnson said.

The rooms are also fairly well soundproofed – a luxury previously unknown – which became apparent as instructors and students commenced lessons.

“You could hear the other instruments if you were silent, but once you started playing, you couldn’t hear them,” Johnson said, although he conceded, “the drums were a problem.”

The centerpiece is perhaps the 900-square-foot performance hall, bounded on two sides by a mezzanine. The guild is now looking for a moveable stage – a local dance group loaned one for this weekend’s grand opening celebration – and perhaps someday, a grand piano.

The organization has about 90 members, including instructors who rent the classroom spaces and musicians who get the benefit of gig referrals for a $25 annual membership fee.

Some 500 students are said to be enrolled in classes.

During its period of homelessness, the guild kept its name out in the community by sponsoring a popular series of weekend music events at Pegasus Coffee House, bringing in talent from across the region. An open-mic series on Sunday evenings at that same venue has attracted aspiring performers of all ages and musical abilities.

“That’s really blossomed, and it’s so much fun,” Johnson said.

Fiddle player Stuart Williams, one of the guild’s founding instructors, said the new space should grow beyond an instruction hall into “more of a musical community center.”

“The guild has been a wonderful thing, bringing us in contact with a broader range of musicians,” Williams said. “I think that’s true for all of us.”

The guild will fete its good fortune today with a full day of performances.

But for Johnson, the payoff came as instructors and students started finding their way to the hall over the past week.

“The grand opening, for me, was hearing the first students play,” he said.

* * * * *

A new tune

Island Music Guild celebrates its grand re-opening with an open house and full day of musical performances, beginning at 12 p.m. today. The hall is located at 10598 Valley Road. All events are free and open to the public

Student performances:

12:30 p.m. – Johnny James (fiddle); 1 p.m. – Tristan Estridge (guitar & vocal); 1:30 p.m. – The Shades (5 members: guitar, bass, keyboard, drums & vocals); 2 p.m. – Hank Veenstra (fiddle); 2:30 p.m. – Thea Thompson and Bryan Dever (guitar and vocals); 3 p.m. – Ranger Sciacca (fiddle); 3:30 p.m. – Julia Richfield (piano and vocal); 4 p.m. – Andrew Robison (guitar, mandolin, and vocal); 4:30 p.m. – Kaitlin Rose (guitar and vocal); 5 p.m. – Amelia Brummel (vocal); 5:15 p.m. – Walker Hauptman (fiddle); 5:30 p.m. – Megan Clark with the teen band “I.G.”; 6 p.m. – Anne Stern & Jaqui Stewart (electric guitars & vocals); 6:15 p.m. – Melissa Johnson (piano)

Guild celebration:

7:15 p.m. – Jon Doll & Lo Samuelson; 7:35 (Ranger and Michael Sciacca); 7:55 – Arundel Consort; 8:10 – address by Marilyn Turkovich, Arts and Humanities Council; 8:15 – ribbon cutting and dedication; 8:20 – Peter Spencer; 8:40 – Hadley Caliman, Alan Simcoe, James Watercutty, Jherek Bischoff, Korum Bischoff; 9:15 – open mic

Information: 780-6911 or www.islandmusic.org.