A One-Stop Shop for Musical Talent

SHARON, Pa. – A new company is making life easier for local music students and show producers by offering voice and instrument lessons and providing artists needed for a concert or musical. 

Premiere Performances has a staff of some of the area’s top music and stage talent. It offers private lessons to Mahoning and Shenango valley students in its studios.

It also provides a service to theaters, churches and other show producers by offering a simplified way to find and hire qualified musicians and singers.

Assembling a pit orchestra can be a difficult and time-consuming task for a producer, and one that comes with no guarantee of success. Premiere aims to take that headache off a producer’s hands, says Joe Spurio, founder and director of the company.

Premiere currently handles the live music for all productions at Acts Theater in downtown Sharon and would like to expand to other theaters. 

The company is located at 40 S. Irvine St. in space it leases from Acts theater. The building is adjacent to Acts, and was once the rectory of the former church that is now the theater.

It offers private music lessons to more than 60 students in the three studios at the location.

Spurio, of Girard, Ohio, founded Premiere Performances, a limited liability company, last year.

He has 10 musicians, singers, songwriters, voice instructors, music directors, choreographers and theatrical combat instructors on his staff. 

A One-Stop Shop

Show producers can obtain all the musical talent they need for a show with one phone call to Premiere.

Spurio says his service is a first for the area, and it’s one that can easily grow. While the company is still getting off the ground, he is looking to expand his stable of musicians who can be hired out, and add more theaters who use his services.

It’s a unique business model that stems from an entrepreneurial mindset. 

“This is something that is going to change the game for how a theater can do things,” Spurio says. “To my knowledge, nothing like this has been done around here at this scale.”

Spurio has a master’s degree in choral conducting from Youngstown State University and a bachelor’s degree in musical education from Westminster College.

The Hubbard High School graduate works full-time as music director and director of music ministries at St. Patrick’s Church in Hubbard.

He is also the assistant choral director of Shenango Valley Chorale in Sharon, and has served as music director for many local theater productions, including the Youngstown Playhouse’s landmark production of “Rent” at Powers Auditorium in 2023.

Spurio is also proud to connect local music instructors with students and give them a place to teach lessons and earn money. He sees it as another service he is offering to the region’s arts community and a way to help recent college graduates with music degrees earn money.

Teachers at a dozen schools in Ohio and Pennsylvania that do not offer music classes have begun to refer their students to Spurio for private lessons.

How It Started

His decision to launch Premiere Performances grew from his own experiences.

After graduating from Westminster in 2017, he gave private music lessons to clients and also fielded many calls to sing at churches, nursing homes and wedding receptions.

“The need found me,” he says. “I could see that there wasn’t a place to go [to find] music teachers who were certified and experienced. There was no reassurance [of an instructor’s quality] beyond word of mouth.”

The same problem existed for show producers who were looking for musical help.

Seeing the need for instrumentalists, singers, music teachers and private coaches, Spurio created Premiere Performances as a way to centralize all those services at one place.

“We’re serving the community by providing a safe and easy way to get quality artists,” he says.

The company also helps college graduates in music, dance and other fields “by giving them a way to utilize their degree at a place where they can [work] as little or as much as they like,” Spurio says.

His service comes with a guarantee that can put a producer or director’s mind at ease.

“If you hire a musician by word of mouth and they aren’t up to standards, you have to call it a loss and never hire them again,” Spurio explains.

“But we give them a way of knowing that [the person they are hiring] has been screened, and if there is an issue – like lack of preparation – there’s a way to hold that person accountable,” he says. “It’s a safety net for those doing the hiring. The headache has been taken off their hands and quality is assured.”

In addition to Spurio, the staff of instructors and directors at Premiere Performances includes Emily Gerak, Madison Sheffield, Stephanie Pavlovich, Maria Mangine, Casey Loren, Erika Walker, Erin Morell, Tyler Stouffer and Megan Keown.

Gerak, a vocal instructor, has worked full-time at Premiere for the past year.

“It’s been a phenomenal opportunity,” she says. “I love working with kids.”

The Poland native and YSU graduate will be moving to the Mansfield area in a few weeks, where she will begin a new job as a public school teacher. But she will continue to teach at Premiere on weekends during the school year.

Help from LaunchBox

Tom Roberts of Shenango LaunchBox worked with Spurio to get Premiere Performances off the ground. The Sharon-based agency helps entrepreneurs by providing them with guidance and resources as they start a business.

Roberts, who is also a board member of Acts theater, coached Spurio as he shaped his idea and brought it to market.

“It was fun, because he was on the path of a traditional music educator but felt the desire to be more entrepreneurial,” Roberts says.

Spurio has done the research and is aligning his services with the market’s needs.

“Students from public schools pay him for private lessons,” Roberts says. “He’s building good relationships with public educators.”

Roberts says Spurio is in the early stage of something that will get much bigger.

“We’re excited to walk with him and support him,” he says. “I think he can build something really special that positively impacts students and employs musicians who are looking for a side hustle.”

Spurio had done work with Acts theater before he started his business. The theater would hire him as music director for a show and pay him as a contractor, with Spurio handling the hiring of musicians.

It’s a business practice that he would like to repeat with other local theaters.

“Say the Youngstown Playhouse hired [Premiere Performances] for a show,” Roberts explains. “They could sign a single contract with his company… instead of having to sign 14 contracts. They can call one person and he can deliver according to their needs, and I think that’s exciting.”

To learn more about Premier Performances, go to premiereperformances.net.

Pictured at top: Joe Spurio, founder and director of Premiere Performances, at a keyboard in one of his studios in Sharon, Pa.