Mentor Spotlight – By Tatia Rose (Director, Nashville Music Academy)

Hopefully, we all have that teacher, mentor or advisor who has shaped our lives for the better. For me, this was a fortunate collection of individuals who came in and out of my life over the years… my father who taught me to be curious about the truth, my mother who taught me to be kind (and was also my first piano teacher), and later in life business mentors who showed me the result of the audacity of believing in yourself. However, there was one person whose advice stood out above all others, and that was of my college advisor Dr. Crotti (WVU). He saw me struggling at a difficult crossroads in my life. I had just changed my major from Finance to Music, and mostly because I was lost in life in general. I was rebellious, and discipline was unfamiliar in my piano practice. At home, my father was in the final stages of Alzheimer’s and the man who was once my moral compass, was drifting away himself. Unlike some of my other instructors (who brushed me off as lacking the seriousness needed to succeed), Dr. Crotti pushed me hard to acknowledge the personal choices I was making and their impact on my life. For someone like him, a professor (Written Theory, my least favorite subject), to see something worth saving in me, turned the whole thing around. I think that’s one of the important roles of a mentor; to reflect your own potential. Today, I am the Director a nationally recognized academic institution. Dr. Crotti gave me the key to open these doors, and it’s such an honor to share this Mentor Spotlight about him today.