I’m Angy Ford, the owner of Bravo, and I’d like to tell you how the Arts Academy began…
In 1991 I began teaching piano in Bountiful in my parents home to neighborhood kids. I LOVED it. When I turned 18, I bought my first grand piano and received a four year scholarship to Weber State University. I finished my degree in piano performance and won the Utah Student Teacher Of the Year Award. I married (a really cute guy) and moved my studio to Ogden. Soon after I realized I had an intense desire to teach more students, but I already was teaching 6 days a week until 9 or 10 pm, so I hired a friend from the university to come and teach with me in my home. My studio continued to grow and I soon took over the basement and converted the garage to a piano team studio. Eventually, my husband hinted he wanted his garage back, so I finally began the process of moving to a commercial business location. This move was a big step as I took my home based “hobby” business to one that began to support my family. Through a lot of hard work, a lot of prayers, and the help of some good friends, we finally were able to buy our first studio in Ogden.
Since that time our Ogden location has had much success, we have built onto the Ogden school two times and added other programs such as preschool, dance, tumbling, karate, and art. I love my Ogden roots, it’s where I feel I began to really make a difference to many, many students. On August 16, 2010 (a date I will never forget) we opened our second arts academy in Clearfield. I was so nervous about the mortgage and big financial risk I had taken on, but thankfully many families have wanted what we offer their kids and I’m not so worried anymore.
People often ask me what’s next? Well, I can’t say I really had a written plan for everything that has happened this far, I think I’ll keep doing what I feel good about. Expansion is appealing to me, but I need to balance my children (four girls and one boy) and try to sleep a bit more at night, at least for a little bit…
“We sent our oldest son to the music and academic preschool and absolutely loved it. He was well prepared for kindergarten the next year. The small class size and skilled teachers make this preschool an ideal place for children to learn...” -Julie P.
“I’m a parent with five children. They have all taken piano lessons at Bravo. My oldest has graduated and we now have four children enrolled. We have been going there for a little over 12 years. One thing I really love is that it is really convenient to have my 4 children scheduled at the same time. I also love that the studio has no distractions, whereas my oldest child used to take from a teacher out of her home that did tend to have distractions...” -Rachel F.