Season 1, Episode 2: Vera Anselmo, Director of Anselmo Academy

Welcome back to another episode of The Piano Pod. I am Clara Zhang.

I am Eric Hunter.

I'm Yukimi Song.

Thank you for watching the first episode of Comfort Anxiety with Dr. Skidmore. We have received such great feedback from you and appreciate your support. And The TPP is a podcast show where 3 of us invite a guest speaker each month who is in the fields of piano pedagogy, performing arts, recording, recording artists, music technology, and the wellness of piano studio, the mental health of students, parents, and teachers.

We're very excited about this opportunity to explore a variety of piano-related topics with you. And share them. We already have several exciting guest speakers lined up for the coming months.

We can't wait to learn from each guest and discuss this topic with them on this platform. If you want to find out more about who we are, what we do, why we started this podcast, please watch our introductory video on our YouTube channel, or you can listen to it on our SoundCloud account, or click the links listed below.

The guest of this episode is Vera Asamoah from Asamoah Academy, who is a classical concert pianist, a piano teacher, and the founder and director of the Formal Piano School of New York City and now Asamoah Academy. She is going to talk to us. Hello, Vera!

Hello!

Hi, Vera!

Hi! Thank you so much.

Yes, thank you so much for inviting me. It's an honor.

She's going to talk to us about her life as a musician in Russia and in the U.S. and her experience in building The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song and the Asamo Academy, one of the most established piano school and nonprofit organization in New York City area, and how she's transitioning from PSNYC to now Assemble Academy. Hello, Vera. Thank you for being with us today.

Yes, hello, Clara. Pleasure.

Tell us a little bit of your background, where you're from, how you started your piano journey, and how you end up in New York City.

Yes, well, it's, you know, probably a traditional story of many immigrants that come from Europe or Asia. Or any other country in the world. I grew up in Soviet Union in the city of Moscow, which is the capital. It was a difficult life living in the Soviet Union because of the past regime and the government restrictions and regulations. However, being raised by, you know, my parents, my mom was a a well-known classical piano teacher with many, many years of traditions and having students, you know, graduate from her studio and then go to music college and complete their degree. So she had the legacy that she had built for many years. And so me growing up in that environment really sort of helped me, like music helps many people to kind of, Forget about the maybe not so favorable environment that you live in, but music helps uplift your spirit and motivate you and inspire you, right, from a human emotional level. So I have to say, I have, you know, I have had rich childhood and teenage years as far as musicians and artists that were friends of my mom, who surrounded her, and therefore I was part of that circle. These were some of the very well-known musicians in Russia. And it was a very enlightening experience when I look back, after being in the United States for over 30 years now, when I look back, I don't even recall you know, the problems in the Soviet Union economy and the regime. I only really remember, I have good memories of my upbringing. And of course, as probably you know, Russian culture is, you know, considered to be one of the top level of musicians and artists and, you know, in the performing arts industry. Whether it's ballet or, or theater or even actually literature, right? So Russia has produced so many phenomenal, you know, masterpieces for all of us to, to enjoy and grasp for the rest of our lives and many more generations to come. So I feel very blessed to grew up in that kind of environment that certainly helped form me as a musician, as— I probably should just say that I've developed that dedication to the arts from, you know, I guess young teenage years. I knew that music, no matter what I was going to be doing, I knew that music was going to be a big part of my life because I left Moscow, I was 21.

Okay.

But very, very young up here.

Right, of course.

You know, not equipped with life skills or skills to live on my own or do anything of that sort. But on the other hand, I was already, you know, how shall I say, I was I was not only committed, but I was ready, right, to take some next steps to develop something important. I didn't know what it was at the time.

Once you came to New York and you went to the Juilliard School for a while, right? And that's absolutely beautiful. And eventually you, well, you started in New York City as a piano teacher. And how did you start the beginning days as a piano teacher? What was it like?

It actually is a quite simple story. I mean, I followed the traditional footsteps of many aspiring pianists, teachers, who after graduation— I want to also mention that after Juilliard, I went to Mannes College of Music to do my master's. I now also teach part-time at Mannes Prep, which I am proud and honored to be on the faculty for more than 25 years. So after graduating, I, you know, didn't really know what exactly I was going to do. I did some performing, I did some teaching, I was putting flyers on bus stops, I was on my bicycle, you know, riding around the city and You know, from one of those flyers, I got a call from a church in Harlem, and that was in mid-'90s, maybe '97. So at that time, you know, Harlem was not what it is today. It was, you know, many buildings were abandoned and burned down, and so it was not an area where you would typically, you know, go for piano lessons. But the woman I spoke on the phone with was very warm, and somehow we connected on the phone really well. And she simply said, I saw your flyer on the bus stop. We are a church, we have many kids, but we cannot afford your private lesson fee, so maybe you can teach a group class at the church on Sunday after church, and, you know, maybe each child would pay $10. And I, you know, initially was a little concerned about going to an area I don't know, but something inside me was like, I should really figure this out and give this a good try. I've never taught a group class before. And so I was still, you know, in my, in my 20s. I didn't have that much teaching experience, only one-on-one, you know, private lessons. And so I was, I was kind of intrigued and thought, hmm, I can, I think I can learn something from this.

Right.

And that was really, that was, you know, my initial motivation. And after I finally went and met the kids, I instantly felt that that was a great, great opportunity, not, you know, just for me, but also for these kids to get exposure to music education. I can definitely help them learn. Nobody had an instrument at home, so They were, you know, elementary age kids.

Sure.

And we only used a church electric organ to— that they practiced on throughout the week. It was not a beautiful church that you would imagine. It was just a storefront, right? So they had that gate that they pulled in and pulled out. So it was a very simple setup. But people there were very, very warm and very interested and very thankful in advance and very grateful. So that inspired me to really give this my best. And at first it was like, let's see where that goes. But then I really was inspired deep in my heart because I saw that kids were progressing from one week to the next. You know, we used the method book. I made copies for them and gave them homework. And they practice throughout the week. So it really was, I didn't know at the time, but it really was a fundamental kind of like a point in my life where something was happening inside me. I didn't know it at the time.

Sure.

But it was kind of building up and after that experience I really thought, hmm, wait a minute, I think I can do something with this idea and I can maybe go to local schools and promote group piano lessons for the children who cannot afford private lessons, which is always a costly commitment for many parents to take on, especially if they have more than one child. So that really is how I started, and then when I saw that became successful, I decided to start an organization. Piano is the best thing ever.

Piano is the best thing ever. So how did you come up with the name? The Piano School of New York City in the beginning?

Yes.

You know, it's actually a funny story because even before I started the school, I was teaching many private students and one of my, one of the parents of my students, she was the one who said, you know, you should start like a school or something. You'd be really good at that. And I was like, Really? And then I went home to my husband and I said, you know, this parent thinks that I should start a school. And so we started talking about it. Then I went back for my next lesson with the same family next week, and I said, what shall I name the school? And I think she was drinking a cup of coffee and walking between kitchen and living room. And she was like, "I don't know, Piano School of New York?" Oh my gosh! Yes.

This is amazing!

And so, and she didn't even think about it, right?

Right.

And so as she said it, I was like, "Okay, that sounds good." I did not know exactly what—

how you were operating your school until I talked to Clara a few days ago. And so could you tell us a little bit more? So I didn't realize it was basically based on the group lesson. Am I correct?

Correct. So, uh, from the beginning, like I was talking to Clara, my idea of the school was not only to implement private lessons but actually grow this kind of programs at local schools. So as we started The Piano School of New York, that was my mission from the beginning to really implement group piano class programs at local schools. We started in Manhattan, you know, all throughout the city. Then we expanded to Brooklyn, to Queens, then later in New Jersey, Rockland County. And Westchester, little by little, but it kind of took off rather quickly because there was no such program in many schools. And we, you know, just promoted with a simple flyer for parents to sign up for inexpensive group classes that their children can join right on the premises of the school for after-school. And Yes, it was really a simple idea that took off, and I'm actually very, very proud of it because I think it helped many children to get their first, you know, to get their feet wet, if you will, in exploring what the music education is about. Some children transitioned from that to private lessons. Some didn't. Some really just, you know, stuck with it just for it being enrichment program. And, you know, we are all musicians, but for those who, let's say, are not musicians, I think it's important to mention that music as enrichment, it doesn't have to be a serious, you know, it doesn't have to be serious approach to learning from everyone. So some children just want to explore and simply see what it's like and simply see if they like it. And, and, you know, just even see what it is about because they have no idea. I think it's a great platform for, for many children of any age to learn what it is about. It obviously, we as musicians know, it improves their abilities in many ways from for young children, from motor skills to coordination to brain activity. Older kids do better in school and in math, etc. So I think that it's a very important platform, not just for those who want to take it seriously, but just as an addition to their life and improve their quality of life and their schooling.

So from my, uh, understanding that you started as just a regular profit organization or company, then you had a nonprofit portion of it, correct?

Correct.

So can you, could you tell us about the story, please?

Yes, of course. So because we were expanding to some not, you know, economically well-established areas, as we would go to different schools, we would be faced with a situation that some parents, even at a lower, low price for group classes, would ask us, do you offer this Can you give us scholarships? Can you help us? What can I do? Etc. And that, you know, prompted us to do something about it because we wanted all the children to join regardless of the economic background. So it was in 2003 that we created a nonprofit scholarship fund that was called PONY, P-O-N-Y, which is The Piano Outreach of New York, and that was approved by IRS. And with that scholarship fund, we started raising money among our private students. So in other words, private students would help us raise, raise some, some, some money for our scholarship fund to be able to give scholarships and discounts to students in economic need so they too can join our group classes. So it remained to be such, you know, so the two organizations function as sisters. It was the Piano School of New York and Piano Outreach of New York that supported each other. And it continued through 2016, at which point— well, let me back up a second. I had a fantastic mentor. He was actually my student, adult student. Who was a, I guess, associated with Goldman Sachs. And that adult student helped me greatly to understand the structure of business. He invited me to participate in different workshops that were free at Goldman Sachs. They have a program that supports entrepreneurs and also, you know, small business and nonprofits. So they invited me to be part of that program, and through that program they helped me understand that I really should merge my business, The Piano School of New York, into the nonprofit that we already have and just simply have one organization that we call Piano School of New York, which is what we did in 2016. D, C, C, C, C, rest, rest, repeat. C, C, C.

So it's so wonderful what you've been doing with The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song of New York. You mentioned your board of directors and it got me thinking, you know, you just started out as one person teaching group lessons and then you developed this organization and nonprofit, and what was it like to grow that and work with all these other people? And how do you manage those transitions from starting small to building out this huge successful organization citywide?

It's a lot of hard work. I'm not going to, you know, give an impression that it's It's something easy to do. It's sometimes 7 days a week, you know, 12 hours a day work on the phone, email. Took years to, you know, to figure out what, which way, which is the right way. Many mistakes along the way. Learning from mistakes and figuring out what's not to do next time, kind of the experience that ultimately made me stronger, made me believe through the positive experiences that this is worth doing, that this is worth pursuing. It gave me huge satisfaction to see so many kids and so many families feeling grateful from the experiences of our, you know, programs. So many teachers also expressed great feeling of reward being part of the organization.

As you know, some of them Jazz at Lincoln Center is one of the very famous, you know, venues, musical venues in the world. And you actually rented that place the entire day or something, or 2 days, and you hosted piano recitals. And they were amazing. And the venue was obviously fantastic, but also there were so many little students. Who participated and played. And so those students who participated, are they from your— The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song who took group lessons and private lessons?

Yes, absolutely. A lot of— So because we became a nonprofit in 2016 as a whole organization, the recommendations that we have received from many advisors were to open up the opportunity for Jazz at Lincoln Center recitals to local community teachers, to teachers who teach in New York City and metropolitan area, so that it becomes more of a community recital rather than just feature The Piano School of New York students, which I think is fantastic. I'm really thrilled that we can do that and invite local teachers to really, you know, demonstrate their work, to demonstrate their students to unite as a community, to applaud teachers for their hard work and feature them. So that, yes, that has started in 2016. We have hosted recitals at Jazz at Lincoln Center for many years, but that was just for our own students. But from 2016, it became a community type of recitals where teachers like you would bring their best students to participate. We feel that, we hope they will be able to continue now everything is closed, but we hope to be able, of course, to continue that tradition that lasts. It would have been, let me think for a second. We, I remember our first recitals we hosted when I was pregnant with my daughter, and she's 13. So 13, yeah, so 13, 14 years that we've done annual events at Jazz at Lincoln Center. So we certainly hope to continue that tradition. We want to. So can you tell us now a little bit about Anselmo Academy? Yes, with pleasure. It kind of became a natural development to change the name of the school because we have started offering lessons in other instruments as of last fall. So in the fall of 2019, we decided to expand our group piano classes that we had offered in many schools because we received many inquiries. Do you also teach guitar? Can you do violin? Can you do voice? Can you do this? Can you do that? And so because we have a board of directors that is very supportive in you know, our, you know, to guide me in the process. We decided to, yes, implement additional subjects, additional curriculum to different schools to give it a try and see how it goes. So we had hired guitar teachers and violin teachers and voice teachers and promoted it to many group classes, group class programs at local schools, and it took off beautifully. We had great feedback. And so little by little, the name Piano School of New York sort of became obsolete as we were promoting those other subjects. So we started thinking, well, what is the future? What do we do now after, you know, so many years of being The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song? What shall we do? And it was really the board of directors and our advisors who said, well, you know, you've been The Piano School for so many years, I think you need to think broader. And since you are implementing so many other subjects and it can only grow in many other directions, that you should really think of a new name and perhaps it should become something more defining who you are. Your story, your life, etc. So it was, it kind of came naturally. We thought of the name and Anselmo Academy kind of, you know, was a natural choice to kind of became our brand, our, you know, story to kind of tell our story as to what we have done. And it also unique, it stands out. There is no other organization that, you know, is called that name, so we felt it was a good choice. And so what we did, we, you know, created a DBA, which is doing business as Anselmo Academy of Music and the Arts, as of this summer, this past summer. So it's very new. We created a new website with the help of volunteers. It's unbelievable as a nonprofit we get to, you know, be— it's a fantastic platform as a nonprofit that you attract other businesses, organizations who want to give, who want to help you. And so we received a free website from a Braun Weiss organization who worked tirelessly for 8 weeks and created this great new website for us and helped us with tools to run it, you know, easily and make it easy for navigation for our clients and teachers, etc. So we are very grateful to the group of volunteers who helped us with the transition. And now with Anselmo Academy, we strive to expand expand to many categories. We currently offer piano, violin, guitar, voice, and drama, which is brand new because we had some inquiries about theater. And so we felt it was natural because it's also performing arts. So we expanding in that direction. And we also starting to offer tutoring because especially nowadays as children do hybrid version of homeschooling, and maybe some parents are too busy to help them with homework, etc. We, we think that it's a, it's a good platform for our academy to help students to do online tutoring with math, reading, science, etc., to help them, you know, feel confident and, and be able to still do well in school under very difficult circumstances that children are in today.

Yeah, yeah. So, um, I was going to ask you, actually, obviously the big elephant in the room is COVID and how it's affected all of us in music and entertainment, educational industries. How has it affected you guys?

No different than anybody else. It's definitely a struggle. You know, we obviously try our best with our wonderful administrators that we have who work very hard to communicate with parents and inspire them to continue with music studies or theater classes at this time. But of course, it's a very— these are very challenging times that I'm sure we're all going to remember forever. For all, you know, musicians and professionals in performing arts. We are struggling along. It's a lesson that I think we are learning of how to deal with unprecedented type of circumstances. And I think that overall, though, we're going to all hopefully going to come stronger and better. And I think I, you know, I strongly believe that music has such power. So I think COVID is nothing. I think that we're going to come out stronger than ever after this is over. And it's going to be a renaissance of arts and music blossoming all around the world. And we, you know, the huge payback, so to speak, is coming for all musicians and professionals in this industry because I believe that it's just a pause. We are on pause to reflect, to see what it is that we need to do, be creative, don't complain, right? Be positive, learn, learn a new skill. And we are definitely going to reap the fruits of our labor later on. So I'm just sticking with that thought. So, yes, thank you.

Yeah, it's so inspiring to hear you speak that way. Thank you. I think that's some inspiration that we could all use right now. And I agree with you. You know, we've been so isolated all this time. All of us miss being together in person, making live music, attending live performances. So I absolutely love this idea of this flourishing that's going to happen once all of this is over. I was wondering, for new teachers and pianists starting out today, especially in this scary new world, what would your advice be for them?

You know, the advice would be to be patient, to stay positive, to learn a new skill, read books, you know, learn new repertoire, read biographies of great musicians, you know, we all, you know, who obviously went through great struggle in their life. Just learn from it, take it as a learning experience, as a learning curve. In their life. And, and stay positive. This will pass. We will overcome. And then after this is over, I guess stay true to yourself, you know, follow your heart, see what your, what your heart is telling you to do. It's a journey, right? You have to discover what passion you have in life, whether it's performing, composing, teaching, combination of all of, all of the above, something else, creating schools or festivals or, you know, online lessons. So whatever that you feel your passion is, follow your heart and be passionate about it and work hard. Combination of those few things will get things done. Thank you so much. Well, our website The website is self-explanatory. It's very easy to see our offerings in piano, violin, guitar, voice. We actually just added saxophone as of a couple of days ago because we had a student who inquired and we now have a new saxophone teacher. It's anselmacademy.org and anyone who is interested can explore our website, send us questions, we would be happy to answer. And as far as As far as what's so special about Anselmo Academy, it's the community of our staff, of our teachers who are deeply dedicated to the work, to the pursuit of implementing music and arts education in student lives. Currently offer online and in-person lessons. It really is just based on the client preference. So if someone is ready to start doing in-person lessons with social distancing, we would find a teacher who is also comfortable doing, doing this kind of lessons, and we would implement that. So we just, you know, navigate one day, one day at a time about you know, this hybrid form of lessons.

Thank you so much, Vera, for being interviewed by us today. It was such an honor, and I always considered you as one of my great mentors, you know, in the beginning days in New York City. And I think what you talked to, you know, Yukimi and Eric about these, you know, managing young artists, and I think I can be a great testimonial, right? And in the beginning days, really, it was just very different. You know, I was teaching in the university before I came to New York. And I remember when you hired me, you know, it was within a few hours really when I wrote to you. You were so efficient, and you were like, Clara, you can do this, you know. And I went to this tiny little preschool in Queens and then taught these like 2, 3-year-old toddlers piano lessons. And a few months in, we were performing in Jazzlinq Center. You were like, Clara, you know, they have it, and it just— be patient. So I really learned so much, and I think that's really just the most wonderful way. As artists, actually, it's a very humbling experience to have all this. And so, and I really think that you are one of the most successful, probably, business lady in New York City in the music education sector in New York. So I would love to hear all of the— your website and your— you you have a social media account on Instagram and on Facebook, is that right?

Yes, correct. All of the social media icons are on our website. So any interested individuals can just click on the icon to go to our Facebook, Instagram pages that is updated with many videos and recitals and etc. So, besides the Gifted and Talented recitals that we spoke briefly, I want to also mention that a few years back, we started a youth competition. Right. And the youth competition has the same formula as Gifted and Talented recitals that we invite local teachers to demonstrate their best students at our youth competition. We actually just strategizing now to see what can we do this year because nothing is open. So are we going to postpone it or do it online? We don't know yet. We're still thinking about it.

Wow.

You have such creativity and, you know, it's really a combination of being an artist and being an entrepreneur, right? A business lady. And yeah, it's all these is combined. That is really an inspiration, I think, for the musicians of this generation. So thank you so much for being on our The Piano Pod with me.

Thank you so much. Thank you for joining.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, all of you, Clara, Yukimi, Eric. I really am deeply honored, and, you know, I cannot thank you enough for this time today and for hearing my story. I really appreciate it.

So that concludes our second episode of our Piano Pod podcast. Thank you, Vera and Mo, for joining our program, and we want to thank our audience for watching or listening to this episode.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please hit the thumbs up button down below and be sure to subscribe to our channel. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The links are down below.

If you missed our introductory and first episodes, you can catch up by watching on our YouTube channel or listen to them on our SoundCloud account. All the links are listed below. If you have any feedback for us, you can email us at thepianopodnyc@gmail.com, or you can leave us a comment below.

Please tune in again next time for our third episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song.