The Zion Academy of Music & Arts

In 1997, Dumisani Washington founded a music school in his hometown of Stockton, CA called 'The Zion Academy of Music.' Among his 50+ students around the Stockton and Lodi area were three of his and his wife Valerie's eventual six children. Being a piano performance graduate of San Francisco's Conservatory of Music, Dumisani had a strong desire to serve his city and provide young children with the type of music education he was blessed and privileged to have.

Zion Academy served hundreds of public, private, and homeschooled children across San Joaquin County with private piano lessons, group theory and musicianship classes, and sold-out recitals every semester. Many of Dumisani's students went on to study music at the university level, teach, and even run their own private studios. 

In 2008, his son, Joshua Washington became a freshman at the University of the Pacific's Conservatory of Music. In that year, he also began teaching piano at Zion Academy where his father directed. As a music theory and composition major, Joshua began teaching not only piano, but composition, songwriting, and orchestration. That same year, he recruited his fellow students at Pacific to become teachers at Zion Academy as well, expanding it from a piano and theory school to a full-out music school. From 2008, Zion Academy offered piano, bass, guitar, drums, violin, cello, woodwinds, brass, and group classes such as musical theater and jazz ensemble.

Zion Academy grew to about 120 students and continued to sell out recitals, as well as host events all around the Stockton area. The school had many friends and partners and is very well respected today. Even though Dumisani, Joshua, and their respective families have moved to North Carolina, the impact that 21 years of Zion Academy had on Stockton is still felt today.

Now, Joshua is continuing the legacy of providing quality music education at the Zion Academy of Music and Arts (ZAMA) in Charlotte, NC. This is complete with a teaching facility in South Charlotte. Currently, Joshua and his team are working to acquire land in Northern Charlotte to build the central hub of ZAMA, where further instruction, semesterly recitals, and much more will take place.

Excellence has always been the commitment, from ZA to ZAMA; and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to further that commitment here in Charlotte.