Vance Music, Wichita

Instructors at Vance Music, including many members of the Vance family, draw on more than a century's worth of collective teaching experience to introduce children and adults to singing or musical expression. The school, which originally opened 60 years ago in Kansas City, teaches all styles while carrying on the tradition of classical music practiced by the Vance family's patriarch, Chester S. Vance, an accomplished pianist who toured with USO shows as a World War II veteran. Now, students at Vance can study 28 concentrations, including theory, composition, and performance with instrument or voice and experiment with varying styles of music without bringing an electric guitar into the shower.