McKnight grant caps successful year for Walker-West Music Academy

Thanks to those foundations and the efforts of its instructors, Walker-West “weathered the storm of the pandemic fairly decently,” Haulcy said. “When the state shut down, our string instructors met with me over the weekend and we trained them to do virtual classes. On Monday we continued lessons. I always tell people our instructors are heroes. We were able to use technology to keep things going. The ironic thing is, when we went through our strategic planning process we talked about using online technology for teaching. We didn’t think we could do it well enough, so we put it on a shelf. When the state shut down, we took it off the shelf.”

Haulcy also credited the families of Walker-West students. “They stuck with us,” he said. “They were very patient. They appreciated the opportunity to continue with lessons online. And right now I think we’re ahead of our pre-COVID enrollment levels. And online learning isn’t going to go away.”

According to Haulcy, the grant money will allow the academy to better serve its students with increased support for instructors and scholarships and new instruments. “We now cover all generations,” he said, “and we want to expand our vision of lifelong learning and use the healing power of music to serve all ages.

“The other piece of it is, we want to continue working with community partners throughout the Twin Cities.” Those partners include Ramsey County, Obama Elementary School in Summit-University, the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis and the Twin Cities Jazz Festival.