Grace Academy of Music Education
Sector 50 – Link Rd, D Block, Sector 50, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India
http://gracemusic.in/
Grace Academy of Music Education sits quietly in a renovated 1890s red-brick schoolhouse at the corner of Willow and 5th in downtown Petaluma, California. Stepping through the original double doors—still banded with iron and hung with a small brass bell—visitors enter an airy foyer where afternoon sun filters through stained-glass transoms carrying the Academy’s motto: “Sound Mind, Sound Heart.” The interior preserves rough-hewn beams and wainscoting, but the former coat alcoves now serve as instrument cubbies labeled with hand-painted tiles. A faint scent of cedar and valve oil lingers in the hallways that lead to twelve acoustically treated studios named after composers—Fanny, Florence, Ludwig, Ravi. Each room holds either a restored Steinway upright from the 1920s or a modern Kawai digital hybrid; amplifiers, ukuleles, tablas, and vintage ribbon mics are stored beneath shelves of original scores.
Co-founders Dr. Amalia Grace (Ph.D. ethnomusicology, Juilliard violin) and cellist Joaquín Morales opened the academy in 2011 with a mission to blur the lines between conservatory rigor and community warmth. A sliding-scale tuition plan underwrites 40 percent of its 220 weekly students, while “Grace Grants” provide instruments to any child who lacks one. Lessons span classical strings, jazz improvisation, Hindustani vocal techniques, and digital composition; master classes feature guests ranging from Kronos Quartet to beat-maker DiViNCi. A calligraphy signpost over the doorway to Studio 7 reminds students that “practice rooms are confessionals: be honest, be kind, be early.”
The central double-height Recital Hall once served as the town’s first public gymnasium; its maple floor still bears faded center-court stripes under rows of reclaimed pews. On Friday evenings the folding doors are rolled back, café lights are strung across the beams, and parents arrive with picnic blankets and thermoses. Monthly Jam-for-All nights allow strangers to sight-read chamber music; children trade guitar licks with retirees, mistakes applauded as loudly as cadenzas. Once a year, the hall transforms into a silent disco: students wireless-mix original tracks while listeners dance under dimmed chandeliers.
Behind the building, a stepped garden converts an old playground into an outdoor amphitheater bordered by rosemary hedges. Here students rehearse baroque flute at dawn, or ukulele choirs at dusk when the town’s freight train howls in sympathetic major seconds. A rainwater cistern irrigates the beds maintained by teenagers earning service hours; purple violas spring up between slate pavers engraved with alumni names: “Chloe Wu—tuba—2023—now on tour with King Gizzard.”
Administrative offices occupy a former janitor’s closet brightened by skylight and posters of Indian raga cycles. At 8:30 every morning Dr. Grace herself brews cinnamon coffee at the pine reception desk, greeting students by preferred pronoun and vocal range. At closing, the lights dim to safety-bulbs, the courtyard fountain hushes, and one can sometimes hear Joaquín’s cello sighing long after last lesson, bowing the academy gently to sleep beneath Sonoma stars.
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- Published: July 27, 2025
