Crescendo of Chaos (Diary Of a Private Music School CEO)

Even before 2022 (before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine) we sometimes joked about the Russians coming to invade 'insert nation'. Today, it is obviously far from funny, so we don't joke about it, although we in Europe are thinking about this more and more. We sometimes receive interest from Russian students or parents who inquire whether they can take lessons with us. Normally, all is fine with them and they act respectfully (and are usually also sensitive to the political situation surrounding us/them). Well, not this time! There is a family who recently moved from Moscow, and the mother wanted to arrange trial lessons with us for her children. So far, no problem at all. She comes to the trial drum lesson with one of her sons with a phone in her hand - as she is a blogger and has to take pictures of everything, even video record her son in the drum room. The son seemingly is sick and tired of this charade but nevertheless goes ahead with it. He is a talented, ...

 Life can throw the strangest, most grotesque situations at you especially when you least expect them.     A young (11 years old) and high-performing guitar student who looks forward to each end of term student concert as much as humanly possible, just two weeks before the end of year concert last May, with the help of his father tells us in a polite, but nevertheless no-nonsense manner that we should postpone the concert to another date in the calendar as he has important things to do on the day of the concert. This got both me and the guitar teacher very interested, as we naturally assumed that then it has to be a really important event if the boy cannot take part in the concert! I regretfully (with slight unease) replied that there is no chance to move the concert forward as the date has been set for more than 3 months already, and the prestigious concert hall is fully booked. They were honestly saddened by this news, so I quickly jumped in and asked them what wo...

       This morning (Wednesday) was quite a laugh! Actually, two things happened in quick succession while I was/am still recovering from the obligatory autumn teacher's flu.  The first was a message from a potential - (very) interested - young adult student who had already come for her trial/taster lesson (to one of our teachers) before our term break a few weeks ago. We talked on the phone afterwards where she emphatically confirmed her wish to sign up for regular lessons with us sounding very enthusiastic throughout. I also wrote her during the break again, just to confirm in writing that we are expecting her today (Wednesday) to come in for the lesson. The dissonance struck while I finally sat down to drink my morning macchiato with honey (to soothe my throat and headache; but I like to take almost any hot drink with honey after all, anyways back to today...) when I heard the familiar glassy ping tone of the incoming message on the music school designated ...