J'AIME March 2018

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F E AT U R E Feel the music A BRAND NEW MUSIC SCHOOL IS OPENING AT THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY SHOPPING VILLAGE HEADED BY TALENTED TWINS STEPHEN AND DAVID PARTRIDGE - AND YOU COULD WIN A YEAR’S WORTH OF MUSIC LESSONS A love of music has been part of Stephen and David Partridge’s lives for as long as they can remember. So it’s no wonder that the duo should have gone on to make a career from sharing their passion and talent for piano and violin. The brothers, who studied at the prestigious Birmingham Conservatoire, started teaching aged just 14, and opened their first music school at Mitchells Centre in Sutton Coldfield in 2015. Now, with more than 200 pupils on their books, the 24-year-olds are just opening a second school at Heart of the Country Shopping Village, near Lichfield. The Partridge Brothers Music Centre is an expert resource for all things music. As well as high quality music lessons for all ages and all abilities, they provide a large selection of sheet music, accessories and instruments and provide a space for music workshops, concerts, music groups and more. David and Stephen’s parents weren’t musical but the brothers were fascinated from a young age, watching the BBC Proms at when they were just four or five STEPHEN AND DAVID PARTRIDGE AT THEIR NEW MUSIC SCHOOL AT HEART OF THE COUNTRY SHOPPING VILLAGE years old. “My first musical memory is watching the BBC Proms,” says David. “I had a loose tooth that needed to come out and my mother had tied a piece of cotton around it and she was holding it and, because I really wanted to watch the Proms I yanked my head over and the tooth pulled out.” At seven, a school letter inviting them to learn to play the violin was the start of their musical journey. “Being twins we did most things together and we said yes, and pretty much immediately decided we wanted to be musicians,” explains David. “From then, everything was geared towards us studying music and becoming professional musicians. As music scholars at Aldridge School, Stephen and David
were fast-tracked through their music GCSE and A Level, before winning places at Birmingham Conservatoire to study their BMus (hons), with a focus on violin. “While at the Conservatoire we were already dreaming of starting a music school because we wanted to teach people and to help others to provide high quality music lessons,” says David. “We also realised that the musician lifestyle - which is mostly travelling around the country and doing a lot of hard work in a cutthroat industry which is very stressful and doesn’t earn you much money - wasn’t for us. “I’d always thought I was going to be a musician but the reality was that we both much preferred teaching.” So even before the brothers finished their degrees they found a vacant unit at Mitchells Centre in Sutton Coldfield, and their dream of opening a music school became a reality. “The last six month of my degree were the most stressful because there was a major project which was a concerto and conducting and a 10,000 write-up, at the same time as opening the music school,” says David. Partridge Brothers takes pupils aged from just two-anda-half right through to pensioners and beyond. As well as Stephen and David, who teach piano and violin, the school has tutors in a wide variety of instruments from piano and violin to guitar, ukulele, clarinet, saxophone and more. Tutor Lauren Storey specialises in teaching toddlers and children with additional needs. “We feel that the difference between our music school and a lot of others is that our tutors all have a degree in the instrument they’re teaching and will teach to the highest level, rather than having youngsters with little or no teaching experience,” explains David. With lessons at Mitchells already full, the brothers were thinking of expanding their business when the opportunity at Heart of the Country arose. “We fell upon this unit quite by accident when it popped up as available on Facebook,” says Stephen. “We’re full at Mitchells so we needed more space and were looking to expand the business, but equally it allows us to do more things here. We’re going to have workshops, film screenings, concerts, theory classes - it’s a much bigger space.” The new music school has six rooms for one-to-one lessons as well as a dedicated concert space with seating for 50 people where the school will hold regular events. The first concert, which takes place on Saturday, <strong>March</strong> 15, is A Night at the Musicals - an evening of musical favourites performed by up and coming singers. The programme will include music THE BROTHERS’ MUSIC SCHOOL AT MITCHELLS CENTRE, SUTTON COLDFIELD 47
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J'AIME March 2018

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