Mountain Top Music began in 1996, started by two mothers in Jackson, New Hampshire searching for a more convenient solution to providing music education to their children. Please read how this grassroots effort has become a growing center now offering performance and listening opportunities to all ages throughout the area.
Melissa Nicholson and Sarah Isberg founded Mountain Top Music Center in 1996 to provide high-quality music instruction and musical performance opportunities for children. These visionaries founded our school because they could not find in this area appropriate music instruction for their own children. They had to commute to Paris, Maine, so their children could study Suzuki Method violin. With other parents in search of music education, they gathered a group of generous individuals and formed a 501(c)(3) corporation to supply high quality music instruction in Jackson, New Hampshire.
The school initially grew by leaps and bounds; it began with 12 students its first semester and it topped 100 in just two years. From the beginning Melissa Nicholson included early-childhood music classes in the curriculum because music education is an essential part of human development. Research points clearly to a window of opportunity for optimal foundational musical development that begins at birth and closes around age 9. These early-childhood programs still form the foundation for all our other programs.
Initial phases of Mountain Top's growth also included expanding the reach of the school. By the school’s second year of operation, teaching sites (mostly donated) were located in Tamworth, Madison, Conway, Jackson and Bartlett. Faculty members with years of teaching experience joined the school and brought their slate of
established students. These musicians included pianist Dan Delaney, violinist/violist Chris Nourse, and steel drum band leader Eric Rollnick. Existing community ensembles came under the care of the new school: a chamber orchestra grew out of Chris Nourse’s Tamworth programs in the early years, and a steel drum band grew out of Eric Rollnick’s talents. Soon the school was serving not only the birth-to-10- set but also adult amateur musicians and many in between.
Melissa Nicholson provided inspiring and capable management on a volunteer basis through these years. In 2001, the Board of Trustees found a way to provide at least token compensation for her work as executive director of the school. When she needed to leave the area and hand over the reins of the school, the board embarked on a search for a full-time, professional, paid director. To prepare for this process, Melissa led the board in creating its first long-range plan.
In the summer of 2002 the Board of Trustees hired Ellen Schwindt to lead the school. As part of the transition to a professionally led organization, the Board undertook a review of the school’s mission. To reflect the changes the school had experienced through its initial growth, the Board adopted our current mission statement.
Another result of hiring a full-time professional was the development of key partnerships, including one with Project SUCCEED, an after-school program in the Conway schools, to provide stringed instrument instruction to elementary-aged students. Other similar partnerships allowed Mountain Top
to provide instruction to many more students than it had previously.
Our initial strategy of teaching in geographically-dispersed sites continues to this day. However, by 2005, it became obvious that total reliance on satellite sites limited opportunities for collaborative instruction and ensemble activity. As of June 2007, Mountain Top moved into the old Conway Village Firehouse, built in 1907, becoming our central teaching and recital facility. Mountain Top supporters, led by committed individuals, donated more than $334,000 toward both the completion of this renovation and the creation of an endowment account.
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PO Box 1228
