Lochwood Academy for the Performing Arts

Lochwood Academy for the Performing Arts operates out of West Commercial Street in downtown Sanford, a short walk from the First Street gallery district, offering private and small group instruction across a genuinely broad range of instruments and performing arts disciplines. The school is led by studio director Mindy Byerts Hogaboom, who teaches clarinet and piano herself, and the roster of lessons available covers piano, guitar, voice, drums, and violin or viola, along with dedicated drama and musical theatre instruction for students more interested in the stage than a single instrument.

What sets Lochwood apart from a typical single instrument teacher working out of a home studio is the range of ages and levels it serves. Lessons start for children as young as five and continue through teen and adult students, with individual sessions typically running thirty to sixty minutes depending on the student’s age and focus. The school states plainly that its instructors hold either a Master’s or Bachelor’s degree in music, or bring extensive professional teaching and performance experience to the studio, a credential standard that matters to parents trying to sort serious music instruction from a more casual after school activity.

Beyond weekly lessons, the academy runs summer camps and an audition bootcamp, the latter aimed at students preparing for competitive auditions, whether for a school ensemble, a musical theatre production, or a more formal program elsewhere. That audition focused offering suggests the school caters to a segment of serious young performers in Seminole County who are working toward specific goals rather than simply taking lessons for enrichment, while still welcoming beginners and casual students across its broader lesson roster.

The emphasis in the school’s own description on building confidence, discipline, creativity, and perseverance through musical training, while keeping the process enjoyable, reflects a fairly common but genuinely useful philosophy among independent music schools, treating the instrument as a vehicle for broader personal development rather than pure technical drilling. For downtown Sanford, having a dedicated performing arts academy within walking distance of the historic core adds a different flavor to the arts scene there, which otherwise leans heavily toward visual art galleries and framing shops along First Street. A family able to drop a child off for a piano lesson and then walk over to browse the nearby galleries or grab a bite downtown gets a nice two for one out of a single trip into the historic district.

The academy maintains an active Facebook page and an Instagram account, both useful for keeping track of recital dates, camp registration windows, and any seasonal schedule changes, since lesson times themselves are arranged individually with each family rather than posted as fixed public hours.