Connecticut Shoreline Studio for Music Lessons
in Voice, Piano, Guitar & the Fundamentals of Music

All Skill Levels Welcome, Ages 4 -104

Connecticut Shoreline Studio for Music Lessons
in Voice, Piano, Guitar & the Fundamentals of Music

About Sandy Connolly

Sandy Connolly

Meet Sandy Connolly, the “High Priestess” of Crescendo Music Loft (CML). Her skill set includes identifying and developing talent in her students and sharing with them her enjoyment and celebration of the love of music, especially in its performance.

Training & Experience

A well-established and highly-respected music teacher, Sandy earned her BA in Voice Performance at Tennessee’s University of the South, where she trained as a classical singer focusing on opera. Nowadays, she’s most comfortable in her chosen element – singing Blue-Enable Americana with Ted Ervin in their duo Living With Robots. You may also recognize her as the hostess of the ever-popular Open Mic at Donahue’s Madison Beach Grille (in pre-covid times held every Wednesday evening). She also hosted the Acoustic Open Mic at the Country Tavern in  Guilford for 8 years, ending her incredible run there at the end of 2019.

Loves to Musical Rudiments

Quick with good cheer, a radiant smile, and infectious laugh, Sandy is decidedly not “your mother’s music teacher.” Sandy admits that music theory had to be beaten into her and as such, she’s dedicated herself to stuffing music theory into the brains, hands and voices of as many people who will sit still for even a moment.

While always seeking to improve her students’ learning experiences, Sandy nurtures musical growth for beginners and maturing musicians alike by exposing – some might say torturing – her students to her new Tiny Books of Musical Rudiments series. Simple and fun on their face, but packed with easily digestible information all musicians should know, (how can those tiny, 8 page, handwritten books contain so much knowledge?) the tiny books grew out the need to re-configure her teaching during the current COVID crisis and from her dissatisfaction with the dearth of foundational musical concepts found in most introductory and intermediate learning materials.

Community Song Project

These days, her new focus is developing Community Song Project, a comprehensive, consensus-driven collection of traditional songs that will be taught to Crescendo students of all ages and proficiency levels, complete with thorough instructional materials. The primary objective is to support effective instruction and establish a shared body of work that can be performed collaboratively on a monthly basis.

As an outgrowth of Sandy’s vision, Crescendo Music Loft (aka “The Loft”) is a large and well-appointed facility located just over the Guilford line in Madison, Connecticut.

Sandy Connolly performs at Donahue's