I'm Milton Lance, Founder and Director of The Music School Bangalore.

I started TMSB in 2008 with a simple belief, that a serious music education, and a real music career, shouldn't require leaving India to find. Back then, contemporary music education in India was largely informal, with no clear path from learning an instrument to building a profession. I wanted to change that.

Since then, we've grown into a contemporary music institution offering OFQUAL-regulated qualifications, with credit-transfer and degree pathways to music universities in the UK, USA, Australia, and Singapore. My focus has always been on raising the standard of music education in India, giving students here the same quality, structure, and international recognition available anywhere in the world.

But qualifications are only part of the story. I believe musicians grow on stage, not just in classrooms. That's why we run Friday Live Drive, where our students perform live every week, and why we launched The TMSB Open Stage, a free monthly platform open to any independent musician in the city. Creating real opportunities for musicians, to perform, to be heard, and to build careers, is at the heart of everything we do.

What drives me now is the bigger picture, building an ecosystem where talented Indian musicians no longer have to choose between their country and their ambitions. We're still early in that journey, and there's a great deal left to build.