Today we’d like to introduce you to Mandy and Chris Guilfoyle.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Mandy and Chris. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Mandy speaking: When I finished my bachelor’s degree in music (cello performance) from SMU, I had already had a few years of teaching experience under my belt from teaching at local music studios in town. I always had a strong passion for performing music professionally, but there was always an extra spark of joy that teaching brought me. I figured the next best step would be to get my master’s degree in music education, so I did! two years later, I graduated from SMU again with my master’s degree in music education. While I was in grad school, I was teaching at local music studios private piano, ukulele, and violin lessons (not even cello!), which brought me so much joy and happiness. However, I knew there was something missing. I knew there was something more for me out there.
Over the next few years, I cycled through many jobs, looking for whatever it was that could fill the strange absence in my heart. I found myself briefly as a program director for a non-profit, then an orchestra director for a middle and high school, a manager of a youth symphony, and then a managing director of a music studio. I even wrote and published a book about teaching private music lessons. None of it felt quite right.
I always had vast dreams of the perfect music school in Dallas – a school that is modeled after pre-colleges and pre-conservatories like you see at Juilliard and Peabody up North. “Why doesn’t Dallas have something like this?” is what I asked myself all the time. Another conundrum I always battled with was the average pay for music teachers in the industry. To manage your own private music students gives you the ability to charge your own rates, but then you are doing everything that comes with managing your own studio (which is a lot!). I asked myself: “why can’t there be a high-level music school with amazing faculty who get paid their worth, that gives students in Dallas-Fort Worth a Juilliard-like music education experience?” And so, Texas Music Institute was born.
TMI filled that absence in my heart – I am now able to make all of my dreams a reality and provide a place for world-class music teachers to do what they do best and get paid their worth (much higher than other music schools) while also creating this home for music students to prepare for conservatory and college auditions with performance opportunities, academic music courses like music theory and music history, and so much more. My dream came true!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road. We have two big struggles right now: money and reaching students during COVID-19. Chris and I started this journey with a budget of $0. We used our own money for the official government paperwork and the basic things you need to start a company, like making a website, but past that, we have no wiggle room at all for advertising or marketing, offers of free lessons, or anything of the sort. It certainly has been an adventure to navigate this new-to-us business world with no budget, but we are doing our best to take advantage of everything we can.
Reaching students during this time has also been quite a challenge. If the pandemic wasn’t a thing right now, we would be going into schools in-person, giving them faculty performances, passing out flyers, and asking for parent contact information. With everyone home and online, we are only able to reach students through online methods. With the issue of our $0 budget mentioned above, this task is even harder than we thought it would be. We are confident in our school, though and believe in our faculty and our premise, so we are forging ahead with positive attitudes!
We’d love to hear more about Texas Music Institute.
Texas Music Institute is a music school in the DFW area offering high-level private music lessons, academic music courses like music theory and music history, performance opportunities for our students both as soloists and with faculty members in chamber music concerts, and valuable, important networking opportunities for our students. We believe that the Dallas-Fort Worth area needs Texas Music Institute, a place for music students in middle and high school to be exposed to professional opportunities that will help them succeed when they audition for college and beyond.
Our faculty members hail from organizations such as the Dallas Symphony, Dallas Opera, Dallas Wind Symphony, and have held positions in major orchestras all over the world. Some of our faculty members also hold teaching positions at universities, including UT Arlington and Southern Methodist University, to name some. There is no other music school in DFW where music students have access to amazing faculty as we have.
Our private lesson prices are different based on each faculty member, due to our unique pay structure for our faculty members where they set their own pay rates. Our lessons actually end up often costing LESS for students than it would if they studied at other music schools in the area.
Due to COVID-19, we are currently fully online. Depending on the status of the pandemic in the fall of 2021, we hope to be in-person at that point, a new facility, location not yet determined. Students who audition for and enroll in our school will receive a music education similar to the kind they would receive at conservatories and universities up North, all while staying here in the great state of Texas.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Authenticity and inspired learning for our students. We strongly believe that it is important for us to be completely transparent with our students and faculty at all times, and to create an authentic, respectful, fair, supportive, and positive environment for everyone involved. So often in the music world, relationships can turn competitive and sometimes even contentious. At TMI, we believe that our qualities will put us in a positive mindset and positive place in the world, which will bring success.
When it comes to inspired learning, we believe that providing the absolute highest quality music education possible will inspire our students to be the best they can possibly be. A school centered around positivity and the love of music can ONLY result in success, whether that is a monetary success or the future success of our students.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.texasmusicinstitute.com
- Phone: (214) 817-3708
- Email: hello@texasmusicinstitute.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/texasmusicinstitute
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/texasmusicinstitute
Image Credit:
Aria Vink Photography
Mandy G. Photography
LG Photography
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