For four decades, youth performers have flocked to Mountain View Presbyterian Church’s Do Re Mi School of the Arts, an after-school show choir program.

Founders Kay Randolph and Polly Chapman were not thinking about building a program that would sustain a longevity of over 40 years. 

Randolph, then a preschool teacher at Trinity Church who loved to sing and play piano, decided to pioneer a new program where she could share her passion with the children and a small choir of students began taking music lessons at her northern Scottsdale home. 

Among those students was a girl named Jessica Chapman, whose mother Polly became interested in Randolph’s program. 

After learning that Chapman had experience in choreography and performing, herself, Randolph brought her on board as a co-owner of the budding school, forging an impeccable chemistry. 

“It was a great combination because I can't dance and (Chapman) can't sing,” said Randolph, a graduate of Saguaro High. 

“We had a good symbiosis because Kay is amazing with young children and you've never met anybody who can play the piano like she can,” added Chapman. 

As the program attracted new and older performers, it outgrew Randolph’s humble abode and classes moved to Trinity Church. 

When Randolph landed a job as the director of music ministries at Mountain View Presbyterian Church, the school followed her there. 

For its first three years of operation, Chapman and Randolph recalled, the students mostly stood on risers and performed “hand choreography.” 

This didn’t stop the school from growing to over 100 students and eventually Chapman and Randolph started breaking them up into groups of learners. 

Then they started summer camps where students began learning how to perform in musical theater productions that were performed at Pueblo Elementary School. 

Do Re Mi also started “Encore,” it's traveling high school choir. 

The variety of performance outlets set Do Re Mi apart from other community performing arts groups. 

“It's very interesting because most of the youth theaters are on a play-by-play basis where children audition to get cast, do the show, you go to it and then do it all over again,” Chapman said.

Noting  that “we have a show choir that goes on tour all over the United States and Canada," she added. “That's something that doesn't happen in the youth theaters around Scottsdale which is why we have been able to build a company and a family.” 

As the school entered the 1990s, it continued to boom and eventually a girl by the name of Lindsey Calvoni, nee Mony, began taking performance classes at age 3.

 “I remember my mom walking me into Toddlin' tunes and all of the other kids were crying for their mom and dad and I was like ‘What's their problem? I'm here to sing and dance, let’s do this, you guys!’” Lindsey recalled with a laugh.

Over the next decade and a half, Lindsey  remained a fixture at Do Re Mi before she graduated from Desert Mountain High School and moved to Tucson to attend the University of Arizona alongside her high school sweetheart and now husband, Michael Calvoni. 

Randolph and Chapman began to ponder closing the school and retiring in 2017. 

Around this time, Lindsey and Michael, who were then living in New York City, had begun considering opening their own theater. 

When Lindsey learned that Do Re Mi was potentially closing, she and Michael felt like their wish had been granted. 

“We had been on this quest to find something that we wanted to do,” Lindsey recalled. “We want to open up a theater, we want to have our own business and we want to do something as a team.” 

Lindsey reached out to Chapman and after a 45-minute phone conversation, Lindsey and Michael began collaborating on a transition plan with her and Randolph. 

The quartet decided that Chapman and Randolph would remain part of the team as consultants, but the Calvonis would take over ownership of the business in 2017. 

 “The biggest piece of advice was for us to stay true to who we are and keep the love in it,” Michael said. 

“That’s what made Do Re Mi what it was,” Lindsey added. “Do Re Mi didn’t just teach me how to sing and dance, it taught me so much about myself and being a good person. I told Michael that as long as we keep the love in, that will come too.”

After a smooth transition period, the Calvonis were dealt a scary blow in 2020 when the pandemic decimated enrollment. 

But that enrollment has begun to stabilize to where it currently has over 230 pupils, some of whose parents are Do Re Mi alumni. 

 “We owe it to our students and their families,” he said. “Do Re Mi has always been a word-of-mouth company that hasn’t done any advertising.” 

Do Re Mi School of the Arts plans to celebrate its 40th season relatively quietly by continuing to perform its fall concert at Redfield Elementary School Dec. 9. Then it will host its spring concert at Scottsdale Center for the Arts. 

Scholars participating in its Encore touring show choir are also planning to head to Canada this spring to perform and are currently rehearsing to perform a holiday medley throughout the Valley to numerous retirement homes/facilities, parties and shopping centers to raise money for this tour.

Though Chapman and Randolph are happily retired from their roles as the original co-owners of the Do Re Mi School of the Arts, they can’t help but smile when they look back on the legacy they created. 

“I just feel very, very blessed and very lucky that two kids came through our program and wanted to buy our business and continue it,” Randolph said. I hope it goes on for 30 to 40 more years.”