Former Tampa TV exec, wife open music lesson franchise business in Clearwater

Are you ready to rock? The School of Rock, an international chain of music schools that teaches students how to play and perform like rockstars, is ready. It's opening its newest location in Clearwater. 

The new branch is just down the street from Ruth Eckerd Hall at 1530 McMullen Booth Road and offers immersive, performance-based music lessons to students of all ages and skill levels. Students as young as three years old receive weekly one-on-one instruction in guitar, bass, drums, keyboards or vocals and participate in group band rehearsals that culminate in live performances at real venues. 

The School of Rock Clearwater is owned by franchisees Jayme Neto and Marina Coelho — a husband and wife team who first discovered the gig-based music program as parents when their children enrolled in lessons at a St. Petersburg-based branch. Before launching their new Clearwater School of Rock branch, Neto spent more than two decades in broadcast television, more recently as general manager of a Telemundo station owned by NBC Universal in Tampa. 

"Owning a School of Rock was a major life transition decision," Neto says in the release. "As a family, we wanted to find an opportunity that was meaningful and purposeful. School of Rock matched that goal perfectly."

Clearwater’s new School of Rock will host a family-friendly grand opening party for the public from 1- 4 p.m. Sunday, July 26. Even ahead of its grand opening, the School of Rock, the release states, is already making a name for itself throughout the community. In its first three months of soft operation it enrolled 84 students and hosted its first-ever show at the Dunedin Brewery, drawing a crowd of friends and family eager to see its newest students perform their first live gig. 

The School of Rock was  founded in Philadelphia in 1998 and has since grown to more than 650 schools open or in development across 23 global markets, instructing more than 80,000 budding rock stars.