Crescendo Studios, a brand-new, beautiful facility for music lessons, showed its commitment to community engagement by signing on as a Gold-level sponsor of the 2019 Taste of Annandale.
Crescendo offers lessons in piano, guitar, drum, bass, violin, cello, viola, and voice to children, teens, and adults. It’s located in a former TV studio, Megahertz Network, at 8101-A Lee Highway in Merrifield across the street from the Mosaic District.
The founder, Falls Church High School teacher Lynelle Palencia, wanted to provide a place to teach music that is geared to the individual student, says Crescendo’s director, Edward Fuentes.
“When you’re dealing with the arts, a curriculum doesn’t really work. She believes the best approach is solely dependent on the teacher and student,” says Fuentes, who notes that Lynelle’s daughter, Mariela Palencia, is a gifted singer who has performed at Carnegie Hall.
Crescendo has seven private rooms for individual music lessons, four rooms for band practice, two studio rooms that can be used for recording, and other spaces for group lessons.
Each of the band rooms has a mural depicting a particular U.S. city known for its music: New Orleans, New York, Detroit, and Nashville.
There is also a huge open space undergoing renovation that will be used for performances, recitals, and community workshops and events – and also available for rental by local theater and music groups. The second floor of the building, not yet renovated, could eventually be leased to education-related businesses, Fuentes says.
When he was growing up, “we associated guitar with rock,” says Fuentes, who has a degree in audio production and plays bass in the Take the Cake cover band, but the goal at Crescendo is to present music in a “genre-free” way.
Kids are taught music without pigeonholing it into a particular format. They also learn the cultural background of music, as well as how to play an instrument, he says.
In addition to one-on-one lessons, Crescendo offers a group keyboard program for 5 to 7-year-olds on Monday and Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings.
For younger children, beginning at age two-and-half, Crescendo is launching two music and motion programs in partnership with Music Together and Funfit within in the next few months.
Taste of Annandale - April 29, 2023 