Life works in very mysterious ways. I have always been a fanatic for Frank Zappa. Never the most popular music, I often ruined many college parties by switching the music from Springsteen to Zappa…lets just say all the girls left the room instantaneously! The other day someone asked what inspired me to open One River and the obvious answer was my experience building the School of Rock chain from a startup to a national business. Running the School of Rock taught me a lot about myself. Our mission to “Save Rock and Roll One Kid at a Time” was rooted in a unique approach to performance-based education. Along the way I saw thousands of kids learn to play, develop confidence, build creative thinking skills and embrace goal orientation in a fun music club. So why not do it for art? And make it for people of all ages? And build it around our own proprietary method? That’s what we did! The results have been amazing…thousands of students generating phenomenal artwork while growing and having fun. We have so many things up our sleeve here for 2016 including the most compelling series of emerging art exhibitions ever to take place in New Jersey. Ok, so what about Frank Zappa and how does he play into this? I met a young musician in 2000 performing Frank’s music at the Bottom Line. I went on to manage Carl Restivo who later worked for SoR and I found out through him that 12 yo kids were playing Zappa’s music. One thing led to another and I joined as CEO of School of Rock. So glad I switched the records to Zappa… BTW Happy 75th Birthday Frank! Matt Ross Founder #OneRiver #OdetoFrankZappa #SchoolofRock Matt@oneriverschool.com