ABOUT US
Founder of Finding Mozart
PROGRAM OUTREACH
Dallas, Texas
Marrakesh, Morocco (Coming in 2020)
Growing up dirt poor, as the oldest of 10 children, my parents couldn’t afford a piano in the house, or ballet or music lessons. I wanted to learn piano so badly, I taught myself to play on an old out of tune piano with sticky keys in my school building.
I wanted more for my children, so I got my Suzuki Piano certification simply to teach them. This international renowned method to teach children to learn music like a language, starting as young as 3 years old, proved to be an amazing start in music for my children.
I saw first hand the benefits of early music education in my children. In high school, they won best in the city 5 times at the city-wide Irving’s Got Talent competition. As they grew, they were offered full academic scholarships to schools like SMU, and my oldest daughter was accepted into 5 med schools.
My friends started asking me to teach their children, and my home studio grew until it had a waitlist. For 25 years, I ran a thriving private Suzuki Piano studio from my home but felt the need to find a way to make music lessons affordable for more families.
In 2016, I made history opening Irving’s first music school. RBR Muzik and Arts, in a little more than 3 years has enrolled more than 500 students, many driving from other cities, such as Grand Prairie, Coppell, and Dallas, to study private or group music lessons in piano, violin, voice, guitar, drums and more, starting at only $80 a month.
RBR stands for “Rhythm Before Reading” because it is proven that children who start music training early are able to read faster. My small group keyboard classes for students as young as 3 have proved so successful, they are selling out.
The request for Ballet lessons inspired me to want to open Irving Ballet School as a branch of my thriving music school. My first Facebook boost for Irving Ballet School went viral and getting more than 600 likes, I was able to hit 100 ballet students in 5 weeks.
Now, within the one location of RBR Muzik and Irving Ballet school, in 3600 square feet, families can now have their child in a classical ballet lesson, while their sibling is getting their music lesson, with affordable prices and without having to drive to multiple locations.
30 part-time employees, including a Fulbright Scholar and top faculty driving from UNT and SMU, give families the quality arts education they used to have to drive miles for, all in one beautiful place, minutes from their home.
Growing primarily through word of mouth, I added a classical youth orchestra, received 2 small business awards, been nominated for National Music School of the Year, and recently made a national women's business magazine and currently under negotiations to bring my after-school group piano classes to a 34 school national chain.
But, my true passion is to bring music to those most in need, which led me to the formation of my nonprofit, The Finding Mozart Project, whose mission is to bring music and arts to those children in underprivileged and unseen communities.
If you were to ask me what is the most important invention in the last 50 years, I would tell you it is the ability to put batteries in a portable piano keyboard and teach music in a dirt field anywhere around the world. My mission is to bring group piano lessons to children around the world who need it most.
Join me in my mission! Together we can change the world, one note, one child at a time.