Eastern Starts New Music Prep School

is sharing the talents of its Music Department staff with the general public in a new venture, the Eastern University Preparatory School of Music.

The school is open to children kindergarten-age through 12th grade and adults on Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon on the university's St. Davids campus. Private lessons and chamber music coaching will come primarily from faculty from Eastern's Music Department. Offerings include strings, winds, brass, piano and voice.

"We hope that it will be a fun place for student to come, but also a place to learn and experience the discipline of learning music and have opportunities to collaborate with other young people," said Rachel Kuipers Yonan, director of the school.

The school will follow Eastern's three-semester university calendar with instruction beginning Sept. 8. Yonan said lessons are priced competitively.

"It seems there was a need of a centrally located music school here," said Yonan, who expects to pull students from around the area. From a 6-year-old to an adult who has always wanted to learn but never had the chance, Yonan said the school is open to anyone of any level.

Still, the faculty comes from the likes of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, and that "will affect the level that our students will be able to reach," she said.

"We have devoted and caring faculty, people who have been teaching along time at the university level," Yonan said. "There's so much more joy for students if they find themselves improving."

To find out more, visit the Web site of the Eastern University Preparatory School of Music.

Or email musicpre@eastern.edu.