Fairfax Station Business Offers Eclectic Classes

Global Music Academy

• Services: Art, Music, Dance programs for children and adults
• Opened: May 2011
• Address: 5622 Ox Road, Fairfax Station (in the same shopping center as the Gold’s Gym)
• Website: http://www.globalmusicacademy.org/

When Nediana Pavlova immigrated from Bulgaria 17 years ago, she had the dream of starting her own arts center for children.

In May, that dream became a reality.

“When I was applying for citizenship here, they asked me if I had any exceptional abilities or things that I would bring to this country,” Pavlova said. “I wrote that I would benefit the arts by starting a school. It was my plan all along.”

Pavlova, 40, opened the 2,500-square-foot studio Global Music Academy in Fairfax Station after over a decade of making a living as a piano teacher. Though music is her specialty, the school offers lessons in everything from lessons in the drums, to art, to flamenco, to break dancing.

“Right now, if you want to take a dance or art class, you may have to drive all the way out to Falls Church,” Pavlova, who lives in Burke, said. “That is why I think it’s such a great location.”

On Tuesday afternoon at her studio, a group of four students all 16 years old and under sat around a drawing table. Three of the students were working on replications of a bulldog. Their teacher, Lon Haverly, instructed them on how to make their lines expressive.

Haverly himself began drawing as a child. He was taught by his grandfather, who had studied art at the Pratt Institute in New York. Haverly teaches and also stars in a public access television show “You Can Draw.”

“If you can learn to write, you can learn to draw,” Haverly said. “Most people can’t draw because they were never trained.”

One of his students, Olivia De La Pena, 16, said that she has been drawing her whole life. She said she enjoys drawing people and anime the most.

“I love it,” De La Pena said. “But it’s really challenging. The most important thing is to practice.”  

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