Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Loudermilk.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My wife Katarina and I are both professional pianists. We met at Rice University during our Masters Program. Katarina came to Houston all the way from Russia to continue her music education at Rice. She was the one who pointed out to me how different music education is in Russia. The children are taught by highly accomplished professional musicians from a very young age and it gives them an incredible advantage over their American friends.
There are great music schools all over Russia, they are government sponsored, just like regular public schools and it makes music education available to every child all over the country. We thought we need to create something like this in Houston so that parents who want their children to receive music education will know exactly where to go and what to do. We started International Music Academy in 2005 in a two bedroom apartment. Within the first year, we grew to over 100 students and we hired our first teacher.
As we continued to grow, we hired more teachers and rented another apartment next door. We purchased an old Houston home in a business area, build additional studios with soundproof walls and doors, with a specially designed air-conditioning system to prevent the sound traveling through the vents. It was a fun experience and now 13 years later we have over 250 students and 16 outstanding Faculty members.
Our students are winning top prizes in every competition in Texas and performing all over the world. Last year started a non-profit organization called IMA Virtuosi. It is designed to do more for the outstanding music students in Texas.
Has it been a smooth road?
I would say while walking it feels pretty hard and bumpy, but looking back I realize how small those bumps were and how far along we came.
The hardest and most important job we have as a musician is education the community around us about the value of music education and what it means to do music. How to do you listen to classical music? What do you do as a parent to help your child fall in love with music?
Classical music is different from all the other types of music, like pop music for example. Pop music normally captures one emotion, it’s designed to make you feel something. Classical music will make you feel something, but it’s most important feature is development, the music tells and develops a story.
The hero is happy, something happens and he gets sad, he is depressed or desperate, he fights or gives up, he wins and overcomes or becomes defeated. As we listen to the piece we can “watch it like a movie” waiting to hear what happens at the end. That kind of listening does not happen on its own, we are trying to educate our students and their parents on how to listen to music and experience the true joy of understanding it and making it.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the International Music Academy story. Tell us more about the business.
Our most treasured possessions are our teachers. We do have an incredible Faculty. Teachers stay with us for many years and they do a fantastic job teaching students and investing in their lives.
We are most proud of the success of our students. We have recitals twice a year where every student in the school performs.
These recitals are the high points of our year because we get to hear every student play and every single one of them makes us proud. Some of our students are high-level competition players, others are not as committed, they do music just for their own enjoyment, but both categories get the same attention and ALL the children perform at a high level. We have a yearly jury when every student plays for a committee of several Faculty members and gets a grade and comment about his/her progress.
What is “sucess” or “succesful” for you?
When we started our school people called us and ask all the wrong questions, and mainly not ask the right questions. Now people call and say we want our child to learn the right way and they are why we are coming to you. Nothing brings more joy to our hearts. We value our reputation.
Pricing:
- our lessons are about $33-$43 per 30 min lessons
Contact Info:
- Address: 4714 Ingersoll, Houston TX 77027
- Website: www.TheInternationalMusicAcademy.com
- Phone: 832-419-3415
- Email: hello@TheInternationalMusicAcademy.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theinternationalmusicacademy/
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