The owner Jiyoung Johnston has no true care for the education/welfare of your children. Jiyoung Johnston will charge for a recital that does not have the equipment/instruments your child requires for their performance, making an extremely embarrassing and awkward situation for young performers, then she will attempt to bribe and intimidate your child.
My 9 year old daughter has been studying electric guitar at Lone Star Music Academy since August. This has consisted of weekly in person sessions at the North Dallas location. On 11/2 she had her very first recital and was extremely nervous and excited, both sets of grandparents and aunts/uncles were in attendance. Upon arriving I checked in with Wendy who is the director of the Flower Mound location, I asked her if everything was set up for my daughter and Wendy assured me that a guitar and amp was in the next room and would be used. Once my daughter was called to the stage there was no guitar, there was no amp. After grabbing our guitar that we happened to have in the car and setting her up we were told there was no amp. Wendy made no move to assist, her helper attempted to move a microphone close to my daughter's electric guitar so the audience could hear her. I ended up having to hold the microphone close while my daughter played. No one could hear her ELECTRIC GUITAR and it was extremely awkward, my daughter was extremely embarrassed, the setup was horrible, and her instructor was not present (all other instructors were there with their students). Afterwards Wendy avoided me as I requested to speak with the owner Jiyoung Johnston. Jiyoung Johnston stated she was unaware of what instruments the students played and had assumed my daughter was playing piano. She became aggressive saying we should wait along with our entire family and have my daughter perform at the next recital scheduled for one hour later. This was a worthless suggestion because there was NO AMP at the MUSIC ACADEMY that my daughter could use. Jiyoung Johnston then asked to speak with my daughter and walked her down the hall to be out of earshot. I then saw Jiyoung Johnston pull my daughter into a room and stand with her back to the door blocking my daughter from walking out. before my wife made it to the room to get our daughter Jiyoung Johnston told my daughter "Your father is upset, perform again so he won't be mad" then made promises of "feeding her" which is disturbing in itself. Jiyoung Johnston only made excuses and has not apologized or reached out. I was charged $25.00 for a recital fee and have demanded to be reimbursed but have received no correspondence. My daughter is nine years old, this was her first public performance and it went so badly due to no fault of her own, she practiced every day for months and she was failed completely by Lone Star Academy. Right now my daughter has no desire to perform again, I am sure that will change in the future, and it is fine if it does not but the fact that she was excited and was let down so badly by the adults who were in charge of making sure the recital went well is unbelievable and disgusting. Kids remember and traumatic events can really stay with them for the rest of their lives. read more