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MUSICIAN/TEACHER STEVE SHURACK literally built Broadway Music School – home to a faculty of 35 and students of all ages and skill levels – from the ground up.

“I was just about to graduate from high school in New York and that whole counter-culture, be yourself/express yourself attitude had a huge impact on me. It was just a fabulous experience. I’d only been playing guitar a few months – and listening to Jimi Hendrix and all those other artists with a half million people feeling good and enjoying each other – it was a very spiritual thing.”

Shurack had planned on majoring in chemistry but after a semester at Tulane he dropped out to pursue his real dream. “Music was spiritual for me in a way science wasn’t. I found science and math challenging, appealing, fascinating, but science left me cold on the social, spiritual and physical planes. Music involves your body, your emotions. It gives people that connection with something greater.”

He moved to San Francisco to soak up the flower power vibe. “I caught the tail end of the hippie days. There were lots of free concerts in Golden Gate Park. Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead playing all over the place.”

In 1970, Shurack relocated to Denver to attend Loretto Heights College as a guitar and psychology major. “At the time there were only 12 colleges in the country that had a guitar major program. Most were like Julliard with a very strict classical approach. I didn’t mind classical, but I wanted to do other things and they had a program that combined classical and jazz. The head of the music department was a friend of Henry Mancini’s and a well known jazz composer himself, bringing in great jazz musicians.”

While in school, Shurack stumbled on his second great passion: teaching. “I started offering private lessons and loved it from the beginning. I also started performing, and by the time I graduated was working full time in nightclubs and at parties and teaching a number of private students.”

After graduating he hit the road to fame and fortune. “I played in Europe and all over the United States traveling with bands. I had thought I wanted to be a rock star but I realized I didn’t want to travel for a living.” Back in Denver, he continued to perform most every night while teaching six days a week. “I loved it. It was just music, music, music.”

But even music, music, music eventually requires respite. “As I got older and wanted more of a family life I made teaching my main profession and performing secondary. I got married, and most of the performing I’ve done since has been for weddings and corporate events that are usually done by 11, so I can spend time with my wife, a corporate attorney.”

When the owners of the music school he’d been teaching at for 30 years decided to sell, Shurack knew the time had come to launch his own business. He spent a year researching properties and eventually found a storefront dentist office and alley house on South Broadway. “It was a dump,” he says. “It was filthy; nothing was up to code. But the price was right.”

Having renovated his first home in Washington Park, he decided to remodel the place himself. “Music teaches you how to learn and I’m not afraid of doing things. But with this property I had to learn commercial code for doors and windows and wiring. And I was still teaching full time. We had six weeks to get the back building open.”

Working round the clock, Shurack gutted the house. “It was July of 2005 – record-breaking heat. And we had no air because we’d disconnected everything.”

He opened on target with soundproof music rooms and the same teachers from the original music school. “The first year was insane because every spare minute was spent on remodeling the other building.”

Shurack’s literal labor of love features a recital hall. “Performance is so important for budding musicians; it’s a big part of what learning music and playing with others is all about. That’s one thing that really sets our school apart, because most private teaching places don’t have anything like it. We started doing recitals and we have kids as young as four and adults in their eighties performing.”

Eventually, Shurack put together ensembles grouped by age and ability and today hosts eight jazz ensembles, classical ensembles, and rock bands, along with a faculty of 35 private teachers. “People come up to me and say, ‘I’ve always wanted to do this, this is such a big deal in my life.’ It’s nice to know that we’re doing something that’s not done elsewhere.”

Broadway Music School also distinguishes itself with the kind of music offered. “Unlike Swallow Hill, which is great, we concentrate on jazz, classical, and contemporary rock, pop and country. We have very formally trained and qualified teachers with master’s degrees in jazz studies and Ph.D.s in classical.”

Retirees make up a growing percentage of the school’s clientele. “A lot of them started playing music as kids and have come back in their late sixties because their career is over and they have the time and money. Research shows it’s a way to keep the brain young. There’s a real connection with music and sustaining mental and physical health.”

In the last year-and-a-half, Shurack has been concentrating on outreach, arranging field trips to the opera, ballet and symphony for students and their families, for example. And last year Broadway Music School began offering music classes in local public schools, including nearby Grant Middle School. “They had a great music program until a few years ago when they dropped it completely. So we worked with the new principal and are now offering classes where we bring a teacher in. We raised donations of guitars for kids who can’t afford them and we charge parents a very small, nominal fee which goes to the teacher. Those kids really appreciate it because they don’t have much; they are really enthused.”

The school also offers paid classes at Ricks Center for Gifted Children at the  University of Denver and at the Montessori School of Washington Park, and will soon start additional DPS classes at McKinley- Thatcher and Lincoln elementary schools. “As this grows and if we can work out the busing we would love to bring kids here to play and sing in groups.” To make that easier, Shurack is exploring seeking nonprofit status. “The dream is to see it become an institution that will outlive me and provide music education in a community that’s pretty challenged in that area in the public schools. I like the idea of two kids sitting next to each other and one of them is on a scholarship and the other is paying tuition and neither of them knows.”  

Shurack also teaches at Denver School of the Arts and has helped create a new guitar major program to begin this fall. “It’s not just classical guitar but also jazz, rock and pop. A lot of colleges offer that, but you’re not going to find it in a public middle or high school. There are just a couple of other programs in the country that offer classical guitar, but none that offer the mix we’re doing.”

Clearly high energy, he doesn’t plan on slowing down any time soon. “I work hard, but you know, I’m doing what I love. I get validation every single day. When I teach I have people thanking me. When I perform, I have people show their appreciation and that keeps me going. I’ve been teaching for 38 years and performing for 40 – and I love it at least as much now as I did when I started. For me, retirement is just going to be doing what I’m doing.”