Town Resident Mariola Galavis Takes Over School of Rock New Canaan

Mariola Galavis couldn’t put her finger on just what was making her unhappy in the summer of 2011.

The Venezuela native—one decade in the United States at that point, including seven here in New Canaan—wasn’t necessarily depressed, yet panic attacks inexplicably had set in, just as a determinedly pursued, successful career in management consulting landed her in a job that offered security without purpose.

“I felt like I was wasting my life, sitting there in an office, going to meetings all day, because it was just meetings and meetings and meetings,” Galavis on Monday morning recalled of a position she’d held for six years in Westchester, sitting now on a well-worn sofa down the hall from her dramatically different office here in town. “Then I said, ‘I don’t need it.’ ”

With support from her husband and parents, Galavis consulted a professional therapist (“I took charge immediately because I was like, ‘What the hell is going on with me?’ ”), quit her job to stay home with her two boys and, for the first time in her life, pursued a creative endeavor that still suited her mathematical mind.

Last week, Galavis—an MBA from MIT under her belt and several years consulting with Andersen for manufacturing, utilities and oil companies in Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil and Miami—took over the day-to-day operations as the new owner of School of Rock New Canaan.

A mom who had seen the School of Rock offer her older son a place where he belonged (that no baseball diamond or lacrosse or soccer field could), and in some ways found the same niche herself (she’s now lead guitarist with New Canaan rock group “The Miss Understoods”), Galavis in purchasing the Grove Street business has carved out a meaningful social and creative refuge in town.

It started in that summer of 2011, Galavis recalled, when she finally pursued what had been an unexplored interest in photography.

“I wanted a change,” she recalled. “And the photography was something that I thought was cool and that I wanted to learn.”

Drawn in part to technical aspects of photography such as editing, Galavis soon put her pursuit in characteristic hyper-focus, taking lessons from Silvermine, then launching a documentary or photojournalistic family photography business (which remains active) and building a robust local client list.

Once an appendage, the camera is in her hand less often today (it annoys the boys), though “even without the camera, I would look and see the light, all the time,” she said.

“Like, ‘That’s a nice light.’ I would frame with my eyes. I would take a photo like this”—her Galavis formed an ‘L’ with each hand and locked them together in front of one eye—“even without the camera. It felt like I was behind the viewfinder, all the time. It’s a great sensation.”

Meanwhile, Galavis had come from a family that appreciated music though they weren’t musicians per se. Like her own mother, Galavis had a karaoke machine and enjoyed singing.

“We love to dance,” she said of her immediate family—Galavis herself is the oldest of four. “We are really good dancers.”

As a girl in Venezuela, Galavis recalled, she and a friend may have pretended that they were in a rock band (specifically, in the B-52s and singing “Deadbeat Club,” she recalled, “and Betsey Johnson would do our clothes”)—but it was never a realistic consideration as an adult.

Then her son Rodrigo, an East School student, started to show singular talent as a drummer in the popular home video game “Rock Band.”

“He’s six years old and he started playing it and he’s nailing 100 percent in expert levels, on drums and guitar,” she recalled.

So, Galavis and husband Jose hired a private drumming instructor for Rodrigo, and just as he was turning eight, they noticed the newly opened School of Rock on Grove (Galavis played tennis at the New Canaan Racquet Club next door).

“So we stopped here and we inquired about some lessons, and they were doing a trial lesson,” she recalled. “They were doing their first show, which was Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall.’ ”

Rodrigo signed up in early 2011, played his first School of Rock show in Stamford a few months later and “it was awesome,” Galavis recalled. “He loved it.”

“Taking aside the music part—because a lot of them are good musically and some of them thrive musically and all that—but they have found a place where they belong, the kids that have been in the program, they grow in confidence. They’re sometimes not into sports, not into theater and here they found a second home. One thing I want to do is kind of show the community how special this program is. I’ve seen it with my own kid. I am a true believer of the program.”

The program involves professional lessons and rehearsals built around preparing for a real live show built around a musical group or theme (Pink Floyd, The Who, AC/DC, Elton John and Billy Joel, for example).

By midsummer, Galavis had convinced fellow moms to get their children involved in School of Rock, and then one of them, Michelle Orr, suggested a group of the women form a band. Taking lessons at the school, The Miss Understoods took shape toward the end of 2011 and played its first show in Stamford the following May.

“It was bad,” Galavis recalled with a laugh, “but then it got better every time we played.”

The group started playing three or four times per year—at special events such as fundraisers, or private parties—and has already had four gigs in 2014, she said.

It’s been a meaningful experience for Galavis, who said she and her family all love New Canaan—”though I sometimes feel like I don’t belong 100 percent.”

“And I think this place, the music and doing it with Michelle and my friends, it’s like a breath of fresh air,” she said, adding: “We love it—we feel different, a little edgier.”

Around the time The Miss Understoods started playing publicly, Galavis leaned on her business background to sketch out a plan for her own School of Rock franchise—the difficulty was in identifying a location to launch or take over. Eventually, she made an offer on the New Canaan school that was accepted.

For Galavis—who will keep the performance program alive and may introduce some acoustic options for older students—taking over School of Rock New Canaan is a labor of love. One major part of that is watching the students themselves grow in confidence, mixing among different grade levels and treating each other with respect.

“It’s a nice business,” she said. “It makes money but it’s not going to make you a millionaire. It’s just very fulfilling to see the kids thrive here. And when you see them play, it is amazing.”