Music academy grows after recent relocation

BY JOHN DUNPHY
Staff Writer

Above, Melody Blasenheim, owner and teacher at Academy of Music on Main Street, Spotswood, uses scarfs to help students learn movement in music during a kindermusik session last week. At right, Melissa Bladzinski (c), 4, of Shrewsbury, and Heather McNamara (r), 4, of Parlin, wave ribbons and scarfs alongside parents in an exercise to develop movement with music. SPOTSWOOD — Bigger and better.

That was the idea behind the recent relocation of the former East Brunswick Academy of Music, which found a new, larger location up the road in downtown Spotswood and changed its name to the Academy of Music on Main Street.

For Melody Blasenheim, the new facility is the realization of a dream that’s been in the making since she helped found the musical education and performance center in 1992.

After receiving her college degree in music education, Blasenheim taught at the Academy for five years before taking over as owner and director. In her first six months at the helm, Blasenheim said, the business tripled its clientele, which ranged from kindergartners to adults.

PHOTOSBYJEFF GRANIT staff “I fell in love with the business,” she said. “It’s my calling.”

Blasenheim, certified in Kindermusik, voice and piano instruction, remains a teacher at the facility, a massive structure with 11 private music rooms and large Kindermusik and drum rooms.

According to the Academy’s Web site, www.academyofmusiconmain.com, the facility, in the Main Street Market shopping center, has more than 30 instructors, teaching individual and group lessons in an array of musical avenues such as voice, guitar, piano and various wind instruments.

Anna Stefanelli, a voice and piano teacher at the academy who also serves as marketing manager, said the relocation was made last November because the business had simply outgrown its previous location.

“We were growing,” she said. “Melody wanted to create larger facilities that could also provide more for the students. In the smaller facility, that just wasn’t possible.”

“We were bursting at the seams,” Blasenheim added. “We were growing at a steady and rapid pace. We’d run out of rooms on most peak hours.”

Such problems no longer exist with the renovation of the new facility, which she said came in at about $200,000.

“It was like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” Blasenheim said. “We went from humble to the most beautiful music school I’ve ever seen.”

Local reaction to the new and improved Academy has been positive. Student rosters have increased by about 50 students, bringing the Academy’s total number of students up to 400, Stefanelli said.

In addition to the large private rooms, Stefanelli made note of the waiting area for parents and a reception area where photographs, paintings and other works by local artists are on display.

“It gives the kids a sense that there’s more out there,” Stefanelli said. “It’s really a very wonderful atmosphere.”

With the new facility, the academy has also been able to expand upon its programs, which include workshops designed to enhance musical growth, productions by a theater company made up of students, free musical performances and an annual student recital. A concert series is also being planned that will bring professional performances to the community. A string orchestra and children’s choir are also being created.

For Blasenheim, it’s all sweet music to her ears.

“We have great teachers, a great curriculum and now a great facility,” she said. “You can’t beat that.”