The tenth anniversary of the Black Cat Music Shop in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia is August 3, 2019.
The owner of the shop, Adam Kary, says that growing up in Philadelphia, he was inspired by the Paul Green School of Rock, a performance based music program for kids.
The Black Cat Music shop sells all kinds of instruments and is home to music teachers who teach drums, ukuleles, violin, piano, and guitar. And Kary says that the shop is looking for other teachers to join the group.
On first Friday of every month, the shop hosts an open mic night.
“Sometimes we have as many as ten acts and the show goes past midnight,” Kary told Russell Mokhiber, host of This Week in Morgan County.
On a recent Friday night, a family from Pittsburgh stopped in – and two young sisters took the stage and wowed the audience.
Kary says that the traffic into his shop is about 75 percent local residents and 25 percent tourists.
The non-profit arm of the for profit shop is called the Black Cat Music Cooperative. And it’s run by Adam Carey’s mom, Janet Gauthier. The coop donates musical instruments to the schools and supports music programs in the local schools and around the county.
Thanks to the generosity of a supporter, the coop was recently able to rent a space adjacent to the shop for its offices.
“A donor who was very involved with the shop and the coop offered to help us take over the space, pay the rent, the infrastructure upgrades and the utilities so that we could help grow and expand our music programs in the schools and in the community,” Gauthier said.