Business

New Canaan Music Opens Second Store in Newport, R.I.

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An established New Canaan business has opened a second location in Rhode Island. New Canaan Music, which sells and rents out instruments and offers music lessons, opened its Newport, R.I. store on Saturday, according to owner and town resident Phil Williams.

“Newport New Canaan Music” is Williams’s first location outside of New Canaan. 

“I think we’ve got a pretty good formula and I wanted to broaden [the company] a little bit,” Williams told NewCanaanite.com. 

“I’m feeling really good about it,” he added. Asked why he chose to open a shop there, Williams said, “It’s a great little town.”

“There’s a big music community there and no music store,” he said. New Canaan Music is a membership business of the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce. Williams, a Planning & Zoning Commission member, is a former member of the Chamber’s Board of Directors.

Business

Podcast: New Canaan Music Owner Phil Williams

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This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to New Canaan Music owner Phil Williams, as the state lifts most of its COVID-19-related restrictions for businesses. We hear from Phil about the mask policy at his own Main Street shop, what he’s learned from the pandemic and about a rise in the popularity of musical instruments and lessons in the past year. 

Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:

Business

Podcast: New Canaan Music Owner Phil Williams

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This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to town resident and Planning & Zoning Commissioner Phil Williams, owner of New Canaan Music. The Main Street fixture, like so many of our local businesses, has been through the ringer in 2020—with a forced closure followed by a restricted reopening and new operational requirements. As a retailer (instruments) as well as a service provider (lessons), New Canaan Music has been through as much as any of our local merchants. Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:

Business

Local Business and COVID-19: New Canaan Music

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What follows are responses from town resident Phil Williams, owner of New Canaan Music on Main Street, to our Q&A on how the local business is navigating the COVID-19 emergency here. New Canaanite: What has the past week been like for you and New Canaan Music? Phil Williams: This is a very trying time and like many local merchants, we are feeling the hardship of the situation. We have been doing everything we can to keep life as close to normal as possible but this is an unprecedented crisis. A lot of what we are going through right now is new to everyone. The health and well-being of our families, employees, customers, and the community is what is most important to us. We are also mindful of our moral obligation to help out our instructors. Our instructors are all pro musicians and with no public gatherings, their gigs have all been cancelled and therefore incomes have been cut significantly. We are hoping to help keep them working and get through this while providing a safe environment for our students to continue their lessons.

Around Town

New Canaan High School Graduate Patents ‘Gigbox’ Percussion Instrument 

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The idea for the musical invention he recently patented came Mark Pires in 2011. 

The New Canaan High School graduate had recently retired from touring as an actor and singer-songwriter and obtained his real estate license in order to support his new and growing family. 

Yet Pires continued to nurture his talent and love of music during monthly acoustic gigs at the Georgetown Saloon in Redding. One night when his drummer was unable to make the show, Pires—energetic son of a builder—decided he would make his own box drum or “cajón” so that he’d have live percussion superior to slapping his guitar or using a beatbox. A one-man-band, Pires quickly realized that the traditional Peruvian cajón didn’t suit him because its boxy shape made it awkward to tap underneath him while he played. “I realized then, what if I built something that came through my legs like a horse and its wider at the back and more narrow at the front?” Pires recalled on a recent morning from the retail floor of New Canaan Music on Main Street. “The first one I built in a couple of hours and that night I realized it didn’t work, so then I went and built another the next day.