Written by: Publisher • January 15, 2016• In the Community Pinecrest

Kids Helping Kids at Pinecrest Gardens

At SharpMinds Music Academy, children love to make music! As an authorized Yamaha Music School, music students are taught a comprehensive music education featuring the internationally acclaimed Yamaha curriculum, building musical ability in a nurturing, and supportive group environment.

At appropriate developmental stages, children learn to read, listen to and appreciate music; play the piano; even improvise and compose. Over 50+ years, more than 6 million students have graduated from Yamaha music schools worldwide, some of whom have become world class performers, composers, and music educators.

Dr. Patricia Englehardt, founder and director of the Academy, espouses the Yamaha philosophy that music enriches lives, and early music education introduces and nurtures a love of music while fostering genuine musical sensibility in the young child. Her team of highly qualified instructors are dedicated to enhancing musical learning in students, and have been doing so for preschoolers age 4 years to 94-year olds!

Group instruction on the versatile keyboards, digital and acoustic pianos, allow the students to be creative, enhance music orchestration, performance, and music theory.

Apart from developing pianistic skills at an early age, students also study solfeggio, an excellent tool for ear-training. The often referred to as the “golden age” for ear-training begins from age 4 to 6. The Yamaha curriculum capitalizes on this by cultivating the child’s ability to recognize pitches, thereby developing a high level of aural skills.

Unlike individual instruction, college-level subjects like transposition, harmony, arrangement, and composition, are taught as part of the comprehensive music curriculum at Yamaha schools. SharpMinds Music students have won composition awards, and some have the opportunity to study music composition under the tutelage of Dr. Dennis Kam, a well-known composer, former Chair of the Composition Department, and Professor Emeritus at the University Of Miami Frost School Of Music.

On January 31, 2016, SharpMinds Music Academy will be featuring some of their students at “A Musical Showcase” presentation, held at the Banyan Bowl amphitheater located at Pinecrest Gardens. The Academy’s Children’s Chorus, soloists, duets, and ensemble performances will be featured at the concert from 5 PM, with tickets ($5/$10) available at the Pinecrest Community Center. Proceeds from the concert will benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Apart from purchasing the tickets, donations to St. Jude’s will also be collected in supporting the fight against childhood cancers.

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