Business

PHOTOS: New Canaan Music Settles in on Main Street

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As New Canaan families return to town for sports practices and the start of the school, musicians and those learning how to play instruments will have a brand-new hub for musical activities. New Canaan Music spent much of August moving into its newly renovated, expanded home at 90 Main St.—a brightly lit, inviting space that had served for a few years as the temporary Post Office. “We love the new space,” New Canaan Music owner Phil Williams said on a recent afternoon. “Just being on Main Street is wonderful, it’s awesome.”

The shop—a combination of retail in front with lesson rooms in the back—has a larger space to showcase its merchandise and has made use of it, in part, by offering the full line of Squier guitars, including their Classic Vibes from Fender for electric guitars. “We are adding more acoustic guitars—our acoustic guitars are going to be better—and we have twice as many lesson rooms as we had before with bigger, better soundproofing,” he said.

Business

‘Subway’ Sandwich Shop To Reopen on Main Street

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Nearly four months after it closed, the Subway sandwich shop on Main Street is to be reopened within one week under new ownership, officials say. The national made-to-order sandwich shop could be reopened as early as Friday, or possibly Monday, according to Zack Ullah, a Norwalk resident who will manage the Subway at 64 Main St. The staff has been hired at Subway and Ullah said the shop is “going to do something special for ‘Back to School.’ ”

“I know they’re playing football and the camps are going on as well, so we can have them in or deliver for their convenience,” Ullah told NewCanaanite.com. Located directly opposite Town Hall and popular among both municipal workers there and the guys at the Fire Department up the street, Subway had been a fixture of downtown New Canaan for more than 25 years. A sign appeared in its window in April that the store was closing, just as the national chain closed hundreds of stores nationwide, faced with a slowdown in sales.

Business

‘Give It Everything’: Locals Gather at New Canaan Music for Session with ‘Steely Dan’ Touring Members

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New Canaan’s Will Cuoco, back home between his junior and senior years at the University of Vermont, dropped by his old workplace on Friday night to attend a night of music with two professionals currently touring with one of his favorite acts. Steely Dan, an innovative jazz rock outfit that attained global fame in the 1970’s and ‘80s, has been “very influential for me,” Cuoco, a 2014 NCHS graduate, said as he and others gathered at New Canaan Music downtown to see and play with a pair of the band’s touring members, keyboardist Jim Beard and guitarist Jon Herington. “They strike that perfect balance of complexity and accessibility,” Cuoco said. “I’m so curious as to Beard and Herington’s own process, I’ve heard them talk about having every note fit together, making everything choreographed and pre-planned. I’m personally wondering how to avoid a song becoming too structured.”

Seats at the event cost $100, and by 7:45 p.m. 16 musicians and fans sat down across from Herington and Beard as they answered questions about their careers, improvisation techniques, musical philosophies and songwriting tips.

Business

‘Take It to the Next Level’: New Canaan Music Moving to Main Street

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New Canaan Music is poised to move this summer from its original location in “the alley” on Elm Street to a larger, more conspicuous space on Main Street, officials say—a great sign for the locally owned business as well as for a block that’s seen merchants vacate street-level storefronts in the past year. Owner Phil Williams said that after four years in the alley near Chef Luis, “we are ready to take it up to the next level” in moving to 90 Main St., most recently the temporary site of the New Canaan Post Office, near the corner of East Avenue. “We will have bigger and better lesson rooms, a bigger and better store and a more prominent location,” said Williams, a town resident with a son in public schools here and who serves on the Board of Directors of the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce. “This really puts us more on the map. This [the original location] has been a good place that has really served us well for the past four years—I can’t believe it has already been that many years—but it has given us a good launching point to take it to the next level.”

New Canaan Music’s space will increase by more than half as much in the new space, from approximately 1,200 to 2,000 square feet, Williams said.

Around Town

‘Art in the Windows’ Kicks Off Downtown Thursday

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Dozens of New Canaan shops will stay open late Thursday, as live music, artist receptions, wine tastings and other special events are held throughout the business district to mark the launch of Art in the Windows. Residents are invited to stroll the streets of New Canaan from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. for the 10th annual Art in the Windows. A record-70 stores are participating in this year’s event, featuring photos, paintings, sculpture and mixed media pieces from as many artists, 31 of them New Canaanites (see gallery above), according to Hilary Witmann, executive director of the Carriage Barn Arts Center. The Waveny-based nonprofit organized the event, which is sponsored by Bankwell, New Canaan Board of Realtors and Hutchinson Tree Care Specialists, in partnership with the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce. “It’s great that we have more stores than ever and a lot of New Canaan artists, which is one of the things I really wanted to bring in this year, in addition to the great artists who are members of the Carriage Barn and exhibit in a lot of shows,” Witmann told NewCanaanite.com.