Business & Tech

New Canaan Man to Open Downtown Music Shop This Summer

[Pictured L-R: Chris Sigg and Phil Williams.]

Though he’s worked for 20 years in a TV production career that’s sustained him professionally, New Canaan resident Phil Williams’ abiding passion for music has never left him.

This summer, the 45-year-old is putting that passion first, as he launches a new business in a rapidly changing downtown.

New Canaan Music will offer instruments and accessories for rent and sale, as well as private instruction—in the areas of piano, horns and strings, to start, Williams said. In terms of instruments for rent and sale, they’ll include a full line of guitars, basses, amps, keyboards and drums, as well as strings, woodwinds and brass.

“I’m feeling great,” Williams said Wednesday at the top of the alley by Chef Luis on Elm Street. Within months, New Canaan Music will be located down at the end of it—the technical address is 72 Park St.

“There’s definitely some butterflies,” he continued. “We’ve come a long way and we’re not even open yet. I’m very excited to be a part of the business community in town and serving the community. That’s really what this is about for me. As a New Canaan resident, I’m very proud to be doing this.”

For example, Williams said, he'd like New Canaan Music to help meet the needs of band and orchestra students at district schools, in terms of items such as instruments, music stands, reeds, bows and strings. 

Father of two kids at Saxe, including an 11-year-old son and drummer who gets lessons at New Canaan’s School of Rock, Williams underscored that he’s looking to offer something new and not to cut into any existing businesses here or in the area. The focus in instruction, which Williams said is not the focus of the business at this point (rent and sales of instruments is), is not expected to interfere with what School of Rock does, for example, and a business that operates out of Norwalk recently changed its focus solely to lessons rather than sales.

Williams and his family already are involved in New Canaan. He’s been a volunteer at Waveny Care Center as well as a baseball coach in the popular Cal Ripken program, and his wife as coached their daughter, now 14, in the New Canaan Lacrosse program.

A town resident for 12 years, Williams has been working for two decades in TV. His career in production started 20 years ago in New York City with the “Maury Povich Show” and has continued in the area of production, as he’s worked on shows like Rachael Ray.

“I’m just really excited to create something,” Williams said. “I love the process of making something—I’ve done things like built a guitar in my own time and creating a vision and watching it come to fruition is a big part of what is diving me.”

He’s not the only one who’s excited.

Lifelong town resident Chris Sigg is a 1985 New Canaan High School graduate who works as a Realtor in town and helped facilitate the deal at Park Street (http://www.thesiggteam.com/home/?ID=22382).

A former president of the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce, Sigg said it’s important for local people to own local businesses because they give back to New Canaan in greater numbers.

“Most locally owned businesses, they’re part of the community and those are the people that we find have longevity in business,” Sigg said. “We are a small town, so we need to promote our small businesses and local people.”

Music has always been a big part of Williams’ life he said. He’s a lead singer and rhythm guitar player with a band that formed in college called “The Scavengers” and which reformed when he reunited with his drummer (a Greenwich resident) from that band, years later.

One show that Williams worked on was especially important to fueling his abiding interest in music. Airplane Productions’ “Wonder Pets” is strong on music and includes a complete, original orchestral score with each episode, Williams said.

Working on that show was an inspiration to Williams, he said.

“I wanted to do something I could really be proud of and throw myself into,” he said.


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