School of Rock offers performance-based music instruction from the ages of 4 to adult, with a program for every age and skill level.
Two years ago, in the winter of 2016, owner/musician CR Gruver was looking for music camps for his young daughter. Through his research of available camps in the New Orleans area, he stumbled across School of Rock. He had seen the movie years ago, but hadn't realized it was an actual brick-and-mortar school that taught kids to play music through performance at real venues.
A quick Google search revealed that there was no School of Rock less than 5 hours away from New Orleans, and the dream began - he wanted to open a School of Rock in New Orleans.
As fortune would have it, an old friend and business partner, Tom Piercy, happened to be visiting New Orleans to attend a conference. The two of them were having dinner when CR told Tom about his dream to open the first school of rock in the area, and Tom's eyes lit up. Not only was Tom a huge fan of New Orleans, and also a drummer in his spare time, but he just happened to live right next door to the CEO of School of Rock. A couple hours and a few drinks later, Tom and CR decided to sit down with this CEO to determine if New Orleans would be a suitable place for a School of Rock - and if so why hadn't anyone done it yet?
As it turns out, that CEO was no longer with School of Rock and had gone on to become the CEO of Einstein Bagels, but the following November he sat down with Tom and CR and talked at length about the SOR concept, the viability in the New Orleans market, and even supplied a handful of names of people he had worked closely with that he thought would help give some insight into the entire organization. One of those people was a woman from New Orleans named Jessica Troske.
Jessica had been the Assistant GM of the Denver School of Rock for two-and-a-half years back around the year 2000. CR sat down with her in January of 2017 to ask her about the idea, and see if she'd be interested in coming on board to run the school as his General Manager.
Jessica was so inspired by the School of Rock model during her time working there that she immediately embraced the idea and agreed to join the team.
A few months later CR was in Denver, Colorado, to play some shows and had lunch with his old friend Bryan who coincidentally happened to also be in town. CR was telling Bryan about the new venture he was embarking on, and Bryan asked him "Dude, do you know what I do for a living?"... CR responded "yeah, you're some type of lawyer, right?"... Bryan smiled and said "I've been a franchise attorney for almost 20 years, in fact I'm on the committee that created the bar exam for franchise attorneys". At that moment Bryan became their attorney and joined the team.
The next several months were filled with similar serendipity. Every member of the team is either a friend, a friend of a friend, or someone who has jumped on board because of their belief in the concept of a School of Rock in New Orleans.
The location is in Metairie, just off the Highway and Bonnabel Blvd - nestled in the middle of Lakeview and Old Metairie, very close to New Orleans, and even accessible to Kenner, New Orleans East, Harahan, or even the North Shore...
The plan is to have the Grand Opening Saturday, June 2nd, and start right off with Summer Camps, then dive right into a full fall semester!
Our mission at the School of Rock Metairie / New Orleans is to give students an opportunity to learn an instrument through a combination of private instruction and group rehearsals, working together to learn a big show by the end of each semester, and then perform that show somewhere around town at an actual music venue. As part of that process we hope to become a vibrant part of an already thriving musical and cultural community here in Louisiana.
