Mission Statement
The SYLVIA MOY FOUNDATION is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit affiliate of the Estate of Sylvia Moy LLC dedicated to supporting Rhythm and Blues music creators and encouraging their development through music education and talent development courses. The Foundation seeks to form an alliance with a college or university to offer a variety of sound recording, music, and multimedia production courses at Masterpiece Sound Studios located at 1611 Webb in the City of Detroit, a facility owned by the Estate of Sylvia Moy LLC and to be leased to the educational institution (the “Alliance”).
Masterpiece Sound Studios was founded by Sylvia Moy in 1973. It is a one stop, state of the art commercial audio/visual recording studio that is fully equipped with the latest technology in the recording studio industry, with new and expanded service offerings that include Audio Production, Songwriting, Music Videos, and Multimedia Services. Sylvia Moy was Motown’s first female producer/songwriter of numerous internationally acclaimed hits, such as “My Cherie Amour”, “This Ole Heart Of Mine”, and “It Takes Two”. Moy is the musical genius behind as many as 150 other renowned Motown hits. Since its founding in 1973, Masterpiece Sound Studios has worked with grammy nominated and winning artists, and has produced certified gold and platinum recordings.
The Alliance seeks to collaborate for the purpose of offering a variety of sound recording and music production courses to be held in-person at and/or remotely from 1611 Webb St. in Detroit. The courses are expected to include, but not limited to, courses in The Business of Music, Music Recording, Sound Production, Songwriting, Videography and Documentary Production. The proposed courses will be for beginners, and intermediate students interested in becoming audio engineers, songwriters, music producers, composer arrangers, and videographers. Students will learn the fundamental principles of audio engineering on a professional-level console and recording equipment inside a recording facility personally built by Sylvia Moy, and will be taught by well-known accomplished music industry professionals and industry-experienced Alliance instructors. Upon successful completion of our courses, students will receive Certificates of Course Completion, and may be eligible for internships with the Alliance!
Prior to receiving a Certificate of Completion, each student will be required to create a new and unique music recording rendition of one of 10 Motown and/or R&B songs, selected by the Foundation. The rendition of the song to be recorded by a student must be in a genre also pre-selected by the Foundation, such as classic Motown, Blues, Latin Rhythm, Country Western, Native American, European, African, Asian, Middle Eastern, etc. The Alliance will help to discover new talent and jumpstart new careers of its students and performers, and will provide course graduates with the credentials they need to compete for jobs in today’s music and entertainment industries.