Rising Stars: Meet Sarah Kelly- Ekman of The Woodlands

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Kelly-Ekman.

Hi Sarah, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was born in Rockford, Illinois, and grew up singing in church. As I got older, my love for worship grew. A passion that ended up leading me to tour all over the world, doing 2,000 gigs in 10 years. I was signed by TobyMac to Gotee Records and ended up with two Grammy nominations!

Surprisingly, the same music that won me awards in the Christian genre was also gaining attention in Europe on Rock and Roll stages. Slash from Guns N’ Roses even played on my album. In 2008, I married the love of my life from Sweden, Jonas! After being on the road for so long, I realized my real dream in life was to raise up young artists. I wanted to teach them all the things I wish I knew when I was trying to make a career out of music. I knew I could help them learn from all the mistakes I made on my journey.

Jonas and I decided to open The Sarah Kelly Music School where we get to teach these young creatives how to not only write and perform great songs but actually build a career in music. The beautiful thing is that these kids can find such a home here in the music school. Whether they want to become the best performers they can be or just get really good at a fun hobby! A place where they can write about anything and everything going on in their life.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
The biggest struggle is that people have an idea of what lessons look like in their heads. We have dared to do it differently, focusing on the whole game of music versus, say, just learning free throws. Our school focuses on all five skills I needed back when I was touring full-time and didn’t have. Songwriting, singing, piano/guitar, performance, and RECORDING are all a part of this game.

You can’t just sing warm-ups in a closet and expect greatness, so we changed the format and made it community-based, and longer class times so we can focus on more. We were voted the best in The Woodlands, TX (Houston area) two years in a row and have 325 students and a waiting list now. My friends in the industry have talked me into trying here in Brentwood because more kids/people need a healthy outlet!

Three of my students from The Woodlands went to Nashville to study at Belmont and all said, “let’s make a school here… we miss it so much” and for me, it’s all about the students. Even the ones who grow up and find themselves at Belmont. Aha! So here we are in Brentwood and I hope people will open their hearts to a new way of learning music, by doing. Give it a try, I think you will be surprised.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
At The Sarah Kelly Music School, we believe that music should be about collaboration, not a competition! We do what we call semi-private lessons. Three people and a teacher working together to create awesome music! We have students of all ages, from 4 to 74!

We are all about artist development as a whole. We don’t just learn an instrument, we learn how to write a song, how to sing it, play it, perform it, and then go into the studio and record it! For anyone who wants a career in music, we show them that it is attainable!

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
For us, it is just about reaching out to one person at a time to make their life better by teaching them to communicate in the language of music. It’s about giving an outlet to get through the highest highs and lowest lows. So where we hope our community is going in 5-10 years is reaching more people in person and online!

As far as the stuff we have in the works, we are in the middle of developing a kids program/curriculum that teaches the Nashville number system and chord theory… by ANIMALS… Watch out… my 6-year-old students are about to know as much college music theory as my high schoolers.

Pricing:

• Because we include recordings and we do 90-minute lessons instead of 30 minutes, we are slightly more expensive than the average private lessons in Nashville. But we are worth it in every way!!
• $150-$250 a month

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: sarahkellymusicschool.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/sarahkellymusicschool?utm_medium=copy_link
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahkellymusicschool/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCwmLUtCSD3L3Rc8RKoT59DQ
• Other: https://youtube.com/channel/UCU09T9JdHAMQbnOK7Z87_1Q