Brazos Creative is the culmination of her hardships, where students can build a musical foundation while also being permeated with skills to surmount fear and anxiety and the courage to take on the world.
“I imagined this space where people could gather and be in a safe environment and learn creativity and the arts that even extended beyond music,” Syphus said.
A closer look
Brazos Creative offers instruction in singing, songwriting, guitar, ukulele and piano to students as young as 3 years old and up to any age. Instructors can teach trainees to add singing to whichever instrument they learn. Students build foundations of rhythm and timing and can learn the basics of music theory. The studio has also partnered with recording artists that provide the opportunity to learn the processes of making recorded music, Syphus said.
The studio provides two grand pianos for students to learn on as well as a few guitars and ukuleles, but students are encouraged to bring their own instruments. Parker Syphus specializes in vocal and theater performance and helps prepare students for auditions. Stephanie Syphus also worked as one of the directors to help train students for two musical plays at Coppell High School, “9-5” and “Matilda,” she said.
While offering both group and private instruction, Brazos Creative prides itself on tailoring lessons to each student. It's this personalized, non-traditional approach that fosters trust and enables instructors to instill students with skills for life even outside of music, Syphus said.
“It's about understanding what motivates each child and how they learn differently and teaching the same concepts in a more creative way,” said Shayne Jones director of strategic growth and marketing.
The backstory
Burdened by an abusive upbringing, Syphus said she found solace in music, learning both piano and guitar by 10 years old. A suicide attempt at age 11 compelled her to record her journal entries into songs. At 16, she began teaching private lessons to her peers.
She continued to blossom through music, studying at Concordia College in Minnesota, and completed her degree at Brigham Young University in Idaho.
Throughout early adulthood, Syphus struggled with mental health and the scars of her youth. While living in Utah with her husband Parker, the enrollment director at Brazos Creative, her friends advised her to make a change, she said. So, in 2021 they packed up their life and trekked down to Coppell to begin anew.
By January 2024, Syphus and her husband hired Jones and opened Brazos Creative in their home. Since that time they have taught almost 300 students, averaging about 80 per week, Monday through Friday and Syphus received ambassador of the year through the Coppell Chamber of Commerce.
“I had never felt like I’ve been home before and I feel like we’re home now,” she said.
Why it's special
Instructors strive to understand what students love and don’t love, their weaknesses and strengths. They start out by asking new students about their families, their extracurricular activities, and job and school schedules.
“If you know someone, you can trust them,” Syphus said. And it's this trust that helps build confidence out in the real world. We can teach the skills to trust others with their deepest anxieties, to write music from the heart and to do great, beautiful and creative things that motivate them to be the best person they can be and excel in life."
Syphus said she designed the curriculum so students can practice skills that translate to daily life in a zero stakes environment. Voice lessons teach students to pronounce and speak more clearly, and repeated exposure to the anxiousness and nervousness of performance builds the confidence to help them create connections in their communities, families and friendship circles. Providing these therapeutic connections in a holistic way shapes students’ honesty and integrity, she said.
Whether it's through lyric writing workshops at Coppell ISD mental health expos, learning names of all 143 students who worked on “Matilda,” or watching a student with selective mutism who barely spoke emerge from her cocoon to perform at a public recital, creating sense of community and connecting with others is paramount to help students persevere through anxiety, depression or fear and is a big part of why people connect at the studio, Syphus said.
“There's power in the arts that transcends what's worldly," Syphus said. “As we connect and grow ourselves, we can help contribute to the growth of the community as well. Music is magic at Brazos Creative.”
Looking ahead
Following a successful first year, the Brazos Creative team have their eyes set on future growth, with hopes to expand into a larger studio space in 2025, Jones said.
The move will not only increase the bandwidth to take on more students and employ additional instructors, but also allow the studio to expand program offerings to include other fine arts like creative writing, music production and editing and additional music theater programs while building on their established foundation, she said.
“We really hope that those students, no matter how old they are, are able to go into the world in other parts of their lives, using the skills that they’ve learned here; whether its coping with a difficult situation, or public speaking, or interacting with other people and just have the confidence in themselves that they are allowed to take up space and their voices matter,” Jones said.
But perhaps nothing encapsulates the Brazos Creative mission better than the studio’s theme song:
“Welcome all to music time, let's sing all our rules and rhymes. Don’t forget to sing real loud; ‘I am brave, kind, strong and proud.’ Smart, creative, empathy, music makes a better me. Music makes the best me, I'll ever be.”
- 641 Phillips Drive, Coppell
- www.brazos-creative.com
