In our first year, we reached full capacity with a growing waitlist and we had to rapidly expand our faculty, staff and operating systems. We had such a positive and overwhelming response from our community that it was a challenge to keep up with the demand. Opening any new business is definitely risky and challenging. Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome? In three and a half short years, we are now the largest privately owned music school in Texas and one of the largest in the US with 1400 students. We opened our first location in West University in August of 2013 and our second location in Bellaire in January of 2016. My wife Uma, a physician at MD Anderson, and I decided that we would open a music school to provide this opportunity for our community.
I was inspired by Vivaldi himself, a Venetian composer who taught children music and whose strings ensemble and choir of orphaned children was widely recognized throughout Europe during his time. I realized that Houston was in need of a high caliber institution of music education for young children. The idea of Vivaldi Music Academy began when I started looking for violin lessons for my young son. From there, my life has been an incredible journey of opportunities playing with orchestras in America. I was so overwhelmed when we finally heard the words “Welcome to America” at the US Embassy in Frankfurt, Germany. I eventually made my way to the Royal Conservatory in Belgium, earning my master’s degree in violin performance. We became refugees overnight and music was the only way we sustained ourselves through the difficult and tragic times. The war in Bosnia began in 1992 when I was a teenager living in the heart of Sarajevo. Having won several national and international competitions and our family status however did not shield us from the Bosnian conflict. I began playing the violin when I was 3 years old, and was fortunate to study under Marina Yashvili, a professor from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory at age 9. My father was a renowned musician in ex-Yugoslavia and I was surrounded by great artists and musicians from a very young age. With a 200 year legacy of musicians from both sides of my family, music has always been an essential part of my life.
So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Zeljko. Today we’d like to introduce you to Zeljko Pavlovic.
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