Fall 2011

The Summer of 2011 has quickly passed.  The Kansas City Vocal Institute underwent a brief internet marketing change with Google, and since has grown its internet base.  With the new school year underway and with the tough economic conditions, the Institute has experienced slow membership growth.  To combat this, we have integrated some easy access abilities with our website.  First, one may be able to enroll or contact us using any wifi or portable/cell phone device.  Second, a "click to find a teacher" button has been added to the main structure of the site.  This will enable potential students to quickly and easily find a teacher or to see what teachers are available at the current moment.  Once someone selects the button and sends us a quick message using the form, they will receive a response within 24 hours.  Already, it has proven very useful in an ever more difficult and competitive environment.

Our internet presence is still large, now linking to over 12.7 million internet sites, but we have suffered from the recent marketing change.  This has led to a loss of over 3 million links.  However, as of today, we have relaunched our Google Places advertising and will be a growing presence on the search engine, and hopefully will regain our previous stature.  Therefore, we will continue our internet presence campaign as well as a marketing plan that includes telephone operations among other technologies - all of which has been created without spending one penny.

Our main objective for this fall will be to restart our celebrity auction again scheduled for this December.  Last year we were able to start several scholarship funds from the donations we received and through auction results.  These scholarships include the Maya Angelou Music Scholarship, William Bolcom Music Scholarship, Betty Buckley Music Scholarship, David Cook Music Scholarship, Tenzin Gyatso Music Scholarship, Melissa Etheridge Music Scholarship, Stephen Flaherty Music Scholarship, Marilyn Horne Music Scholarship, James Horner Music Scholarship, Angelina Jolie Music Scholarship, Beth Krommes Music Scholarship, Morten Lauridsen Music Scholarship, Yo-Yo Ma Music Scholarship, Emily McCully Music Scholarship, Zubin Mehta Music Scholarship, Phyllis Naylor Music Scholarship, Randy Newman Music Scholarship, Stephen Sondheim Music Scholarship, Rebecca Stead Music Scholarship, Eric Whitacre Music Scholarship, Daryl Waters Music Scholarship, Tom Watson Music Scholarship, and John Williams Music Scholarship.

Again, we hope to receive more donations, further strengthen these scholarship funds, and to expand our base of donors and celebrity donors.  This helps to bring recognition to the Institute as well as increasing the willingness for donors to bid on auction items, with the proceeds going toward a child's music education.  If you have people or celebrities in mind that you would like the Institute to approach about their involvement with our auction, please let us know by emailing us at info@kcvocalinstitute.com.

Summer 2011

It is the height of summer and the Kansas City Vocal Institute is continuing its service to provide the most affordable professional music instruction in the region.  I have several exciting projects to announce.  First, we have started a new service providing guitar lessons.

Guitar and voice share a common bond in many genres of music including most pop styles, blues, jazz, country, and many others.  We have brought a guitar teacher on board with the Institute and we began offering the lessons in May; we already have 11 students taking lessons for guitar, and several others taking guitar and voice lessons concurrently.  We are very excited for these new opportunities for the Institute.

The Kansas City Vocal Institute is also a sponsor for the Battle of the Bands 3 in the Point Bar and Grill in Kansas City on Saturday, June 25th.  We will be offering free lessons to the winners of the event.  This is yet another way that we are both crossing music genres and providing music education to the community.

Also in a bit of quirky news, the Kansas City Vocal Institute was contacted by Pilgrim Films and Television, http://pilgrimfilms.tv/, to help advertise in the metro area their auditions for a new talent show.  Pilgrim films produces many of the television shows that air on the Discovery Channel, TLC, the Science Channel, the History Channel, the Travel Channel, and as for this yet unnamed show, A&E.  So in addition to letting them use our advertising platforms, they made a contribution towards the John Williams and Eric Whitacre scholarship funds.

As for scholarships, demand is incredibly high for our music education assistance programs.  All of our scholarship funds have now been allotted to children and families in financial need, to cover their lesson fees through the end of the year, and a waiting list has been created for those who have applied for assistance.  We are now asking for donations again from our sponsors to help continue our current scholarship funds and for the creation of new funds.

As for donors to the Kansas City Vocal Institute, I currently am trying to acquire video updates from all of our scholarship students so you may receive an update on how they are doing in their lessons.

Looking to the future, I anticipate that several of our teachers will be leaving the area, but we are looking to fill those studio positions as soon as they are available.  Amazingly, there is a large number of highly educated musicians that are interested in our job opportunities.  The Kansas City Vocal Institute is as much an assistance to musicians as it is to those wanting an education.  Music careers are difficult to come by and maintain, but hopefully our services will be a significant help for those wanting to continue in music education.  To those who are interested in working with KCVI, please email info@kcvocalinstitute.com with your contact information.  You may become as involved as you wish; there are no obligations other than to your students.

I am also excited to announce the launching our new mobile site today.  Students will now be able to enroll by our traditional enrollment form, by email, and even by text message.  This will help our efforts in making music education more available, easier to access, and up to date with the pace of technology.

Finally, we celebrated our 1 year anniversary on June 14.  In one year, we have provided lessons for 579 students (136 of whom were awarded partial scholarships; 23 were awarded full scholarships).  The enrollment figures amount to providing just under $280,000 to our 21 teachers (17 currently) who have all received Master's or Doctorate degrees all during such a difficult economic time.  We created 23 scholarship funds from world renown celebrities and musicians, outranked nearly every music school and university website in the region on Google without spending on penny on advertising with nearly 16.1 million links, gained international attention with students who are taking lessons as far away as India and Australia online, and have offered unique education mediums in guitar, composition, diction, theory, and early childhood education.

Thank you to everyone who have made this all possible! Keep singing!

Bryan Pinkall

Spring 2011

The Kansas City Vocal Institute Magazine will continue to update donors, teachers, and students about the events of the Institute only on a quarterly basis.  The Institute has had a time of steady growth and steady enrollment figures.  All of the current classes being offered will continue through the foreseeable future unless they prove to be ineffective to the types of services we are wanting to provide.

The Institute had a very successful Celebrity Charity Auction in December and we raised over $3,000 from the items.  With this money, along with individual donations from their celebrity donors, the Institute was able to raise more than $10,000 in just a few weeks.  This money has been allotted to the specific scholarships and we hope to maintain and replenish these scholarship funds for years to come.  Currently, the Institute is supporting the following scholarship funds:  Maya Angelou Music Scholarship, William Bolcom Music Scholarship, Betty Buckley Music Scholarship, David Cook Music Scholarship, Tenzin Gyatso Music Scholarship, Melissa Etheridge Music Scholarship, Stephen Flaherty Music Scholarship, Marilyn Horne Music Scholarship, James Horner Music Scholarship, Angelina Jolie Music Scholarship, Beth Krommes Music Scholarship, Morten Lauridsen Music Scholarship, Yo-Yo Ma Music Scholarship, Emily McCully Music Scholarship, Zubin Mehta Music Scholarship, Phyllis Naylor Music Scholarship, Randy Newman Music Scholarship, Stephen Sondheim Music Scholarship, Rebecca Stead Music Scholarship, Eric Whitacre Music Scholarship, Daryl Waters Music Scholarship, Tom Watson Music Scholarship, and John Williams Music Scholarship.

The Institute teachers have participated in traveling to various High Schools around the Kansas City metro area beginning in January providing free voice lessons to the students.  Initially, we asked public school teachers what they needed most, and we would help provide for those needs.  The need for private instruction was great, so many of our teachers, out of their own generosity, gave free instruction to the kids.

Also, we have begun advertising a Summer Broadway Camp for kids which will be held on the campus of the University of Missouri - Kansas City.  More information can be found on our website: www.kcvocalinstitute.com.

The Institute is also planning to expand into instrumental music with Guitar lessons beginning in May.  This will help our education purposes for those wanting Pop or other other instrumental performance based lessons.  Hopefully, we will be able to provide these lessons around the metro area at various locations.  This will also help expand our educational field to be more inclusive and more practical for children and adults.

Our next update will be at the beginning of Summer and until then, keep singing!