Cincinnati School of Music began long before we had multiple schools or a team of 60 instructors. In 2010, we started as Backer Piano Studio, just the two of us driving from home to home across Cincinnati to give lessons. Every new student felt like a gift, a chance to learn how to teach better, connect deeper, and motivate students to love their instrument.
Each parent conversation, scheduling challenge, and student breakthrough taught us how to build systems that balanced organization, consistency, and fairness while keeping families happy and supported.
By 2012, we were ready for a home of our own. We opened our first brick-and-mortar location in a small Montgomery basement, hired a few teachers, and quickly discovered we had tapped into something special. Word of mouth spread fast, so fast that within nine months, we had outgrown the space and moved across the street to a larger Montgomery studio. That became our home for the next nine years.
During that time, we expanded into Mason (2016) and Anderson (2017), growing steadily through the trust of teachers, students, and families who believed in what we were building. In 2022, we moved our Montgomery school once more, this time to a beautiful new space designed for the community we had grown.
In 2025, we opened locations in Maineville and Middletown. Middletown closed at the end of September 2026. Today, CSM operates four schools in Montgomery, Mason, Anderson, and Maineville, continuing a journey that began with two teachers, a handful of students, and a car full of music books.