Hello Everyone,

As many states across the US, plus some foreign locations, start to ease restrictions, business owners and consumers alike find ourselves in a slightly uneasy situation – a conflict of emotions about reopening in the wake of a pandemic. While we feel a sense of freedom and relief that the isolation is over, at the same time we are experiencing some unease and pause about returning full blast back into society.

The State of North Carolina will move into Phase 2 of a three Phase plan on Friday, May 22, 2020 at 5pm, lifting the statewide Stay at Home Order while transitioning to a Safer At Home recommendation. This new order will last until June 26, 2020 unless changed or cancelled. We are sure several of your states have something similar happening now or in the next coming weeks.

Due to the size restrictions for indoor gatherings and the unpredictability of whether the order will be extended we have unfortunately decided to cancel our in-person workshop location at the Musikgarten Home Office in Greensboro, NC that was scheduled for July. We will focus completely on our Summer Webinar training series and look forward to having in-person events again in 2021.

New office hours starting May 26:
  • Monday May 25th is Memorial Day and the Musikgarten office will be closed. Be sure to enjoy some time outside with your family, whether rain or shine!
  • The Musikgarten office will be open Tuesday – Friday of Memorial Day week from 10:00am - 3:30pm ET.
  • Starting Monday June 1, the Musikgarten office will be open 5 days per week, but with reduced hours of 10:00am - 3:30pm ET daily.

Some of you may be thinking, “When I can have in-person classes again and what kind of planning do I need to do to make that happen?” Click here for our latest blog post giving you some helpful items to think through.
 
Other News:
License Renewal: Usually you would have received a License Renewal message by now, but due to COVID-19 we are a little behind. The good news is the License cost for July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021 will stay the same at $110 and $20 for each umbrella licensed teacher. We will be making some changes to the License contract that will include some guidelines concerning on-line, video and virtual classes. The updated License contract will be emailed on June 1, 2020. We know that this is shorter notice than normal, and we will include some payment options.
 
Material Prices: Musikgarten is working very closely with our material suppliers during this time and there have been some supply chain difficulties. At this time, we are happy to announce that Family Material and Teacher Material prices will remain the same. We will be raising some instrument prices beginning July 1, 2020. NOTE: Due to supply chain and predictions from our suppliers will be monitoring product cost over the next several months very closely and will announce by Oct 15, 2020 if we foresee having to raise any other material prices beginning January 2021.
 
Shipping: Many of you take advantage of our drop ship option on materials to help you and your families continue to social distance. We will continue to offer the $3.50 per packet drop ship option over the foreseeable future.

We understand as your Musikgarten partners, as well as business owners ourselves, how trying this time continues to be for our owners, teachers, parents and children. Our first priority has been, and will always be, the health of our Musikgarten families and community.

Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to sharing the gift of music with you for many years to come.

Sincerely,
Jeff and the Musikgarten Staff

P.S. Be sure to keep a look out for an invitation to participate in a companion Podcast to our latest blog post about reopening considerations and strategies.