Studio Teacher Fellowship Award winners share their experiences.(Foundation Fund)

Each year the MTNA FOUNDATION FUND selects one recipient to receive the Studio Teacher Fellowship Award. This award is designed to assist independent music teachers in developing and enhancing a newly established music teaching studio. The award is presented to the candidate who most clearly demonstrates a strong commitment to the music teaching profession.

Joanna Grace of Madison, Wisconsin, reports, since receiving the Fellowship, she's been "talked up around town" and now has fifty-one private students and a waiting list as well. The equipment she was able to purchase enables her to make CD recordings of her students playing to further their critical listening skills and give them a sense of achievement by recording their musical progress over the years.

Grace's receipt of the Fellowship has offered opportunities that benefit her colleagues as well. "Attending the MTNA conference helped me make some contacts with clinicians that I've invited to Madison for various workshops and presentations.

"Receiving the award has really put my career in the upswing and opened doors of opportunity that would have been difficult to open otherwise," she states. "I am really happy that I am running such a successful studio and now have the income to take a vacation when I need it."

Klondike Steadman, whose Orpheus Academy opened a year ago in Austin, Texas, was eager to express his gratitude for the Studio Fellowship. "At this moment, we have nearly 130 students and ten teachers," he tells us. "And we expect to reach our goal ...