Article “Academy of Music says it will close” reports:
“The Pennsylvania Academy of Music will close its doors for good at midnight Thursday, officials said this afternoon. The academy’s eight-member board voted unanimously Tuesday evening to close, said chairman Dr. Thomas Godfrey.”
WATCHDOG: Very sad. We mourn the loss.
Our thanks to those who tried so hard and sacrificed so much to save the school. Our condolences to faculty, staff and students.
In better economic times, PAM may have found the support it deserved.
The functions of the Academy of Music should be picked up by either Franklin & Marshall University or Millersville University – Lancaster since they both have the needed support facilities.
It would be a shame for our larger community to lose this arts education advantage, no matter what name it operates under.
Comment on the comment: “The functions of the Academy of Music should be picked up by either Franklin & Marshall University or Millersville University – Lancaster since they both have the needed support facilities.”
Response: Millersville University already has a preparatory division offering lessons on all instruments and voice. So does Elizabethtown College and nearby Lebanon Valley College. The Lancaster Music Teachers Association has a membership of 38 teachers who teach in various schools of music as well as in private studios. There are many choices and opportunities in the Lancaster area for students of all ages and economic backgrounds. This was true pre-PAM and will continue to be true post-PAM.
Since the first day they started building that “temple” it was all about all the extras we’ll have and where everything came from “i.e. Hand Picked Marble from India” but let’s face it….did it really NEED all of the top of the line items such as that handpicked marble, Custom Made Carpet in the lower lobby (in my opinion really UGLY carpeting and design), and did we REALLY have to have Philip Johnson-Alan Ritchie Architects design the building at, I can only assume, a VERY great deal of money to hire them?
The answer to all of these questions is of course NO! They could have had just as beautiful a building without all of the extras, maybe then they wouldn’t have had to close.
What I REALLY want to know is…Where Jamanis and Veri are in all of this? NOT ONE MENTION of any kind of comment from them…or that anyone has TRIED to contact them. It seems, from all of the stories I’ve been reading, that most of them blame has come upon the Boards of Trustees, when it was Jamanis and Veri who ran the ship into the ground with their TOTAL OVER SPENDING and 100% LACK OF BUSINESS SENSE that has gotten us to where we are right now.
In the end I will admit it is a REAL shame this has happened….there are WONDERFUL teachers there and some of the most talented kids I’ve ever heard play….it’s just a shame that in the end they are the ones that are going to suffer for the stupidity of others and their egos.
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