The melodic noise from her grand piano echoes through the studio as her fingers dance across the keyboard. She keeps her eyes focused, steady on the music. As she hits her final note, she looks up with a smile. It’s the end of another tune for musical marvel, Karen H.
Karen, who is in her 20s, began practising music as a child and has won a gold medal in elementary pedagogy from The Royal Conservatory of Music, from where she also graduated.
Although music is her first love, Karen spends a lot of time crunching numbers as a third-year accounting and finance student at Ryerson.
“I wake up to music, listen and make music during the day, and fall asleep to it. Music is an opportunity for me to express my feelings and emotions with no spoken words,” said Karen.
But Karen is also a business owner. She’s the founder of a studio which focuses on music education but also offers academic tutoring and visual art lessons.
Her business offers lessons from piano and electric guitar to the saxophone, in and around the GTA.
She started the business by teaching a few students in Brampton while she attended middle school. Then she moved to Milton and began growing her business while she was in high school.
Karen aims to continue this business as a way to give back to her community through her music. She hopes her students will pass that on to the next generation.
Attending school and running a business has caused her to sacrifice aspects in her social and family life, including sleep and possibly her marks.
But to her it’s all worth it.
Organization and the support from her friends and family has been key to managing all of her tasks.
“My Google calendar is literally my best friend,” said Karen.
For students who want to start their own business, she believes they should execute their plan right away, whether they have supporters or not.
Karen’s passion for music education began when she started teaching at public music schools. She learned that the methods they enforced weren’t helping the students advance, so she moved on to teaching at private music schools and studios. Karen came up with her own teaching style to help students better retain information.
She then began to focus on conducting private lessons around the same time that she began to develop her business.
There was a period in high school where Karen reached a breaking point and wanted to give up on music education. But it was her mother who pushed her to continue.
“Once I walked across the stage [during my graduation ceremony] at The Royal Conservatory I realized that if it wasn’t for [my mother] I wouldn’t even be here,” said Karen.
From then on she understood the value in finishing what has been started.
Her music teacher, Jennifer Knelman is also a huge influence on Karen’s career. The passion Knelman has as a music professional and mentor helped Karen strive as a music student.
Karen has also been a positive influence for Knelman. “She questions everything in a wonderful way. After she’s done a session with me…I’m so thirsty because I have to answer so many questions all the time,” said Knelman.
Currently, Karen is in the process of making a commercial to advertise her music business. She’s partnered with Ihtisham Syed, a third-year corporate finance student at McMaster University to complete the project.
Syed owns his own business, Lighteon Studios, where he works to produce film, photography and video for clients.
Syed has known Karen since high school and describes her as a strong leader.
“She has a connection with each of her students as their leader … but also on a personal level as a teacher, and this is what makes her leadership qualities distinct,” said Syed.
Ideally, Karen would like to save up money for more equipment and eventually start doing tutorials online to reach more students and grow her business.
Her long-term goal is to build her own musical “Empire,” much like the show produced by Lee Daniels and Danny Strong. Eventually she’d like to have her own record label and sign artists.
For now Karen is working on planning an upcoming recital for her students. It will be held on Nov. 26
She has a lot to organize beforehand but it’s nothing she can’t handle.
On May 8, 2021 at 12:45 p.m., changes were made to this story to conceal the identity of the person featured. She requested anonymity, for personal reasons.
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