Three students were voted by the audience at each of the three Fall Community Music School recitals of December 2016. Matthew Braselman, Makaylah Herring and Katie Miranda were declared as the CMS’ Outstanding Musicians. Interim Director Jivka Duke  shared her hopes for this upcoming semester with all of their musicians.

“Our desire and hope for them as well as for all of our young musicians is that they will participate in the Spring Festival and receive high scores, but even more so that they will pursue college degrees in music and will grow to become professional musicians and/or music educators,” said Duke.

Miranda lives in Hammond, Louisiana and is a student at Albany High School. She has played the piano for seven years and the bassoon for almost two years. She studies bassoon with Dr. Jerry Voorhees and also enjoys photography, drawing and acting.

Braselman attends Fontainebleau High School. He is a bassoon student of Dr. Voorhees and is also a saxophone player and an active musician with the Fontainebleau High School Jazz Band and Wind Symphony. He has been a member of the All State Orchestra, All State Jazz Ensemble, District IX Jazz Band and District IX Honor Band for several years straight.

Herring is from Holden, Louisiana and attends Holden High School. She studied the violin with Duke for 11 years and also plays the guitar, mandolin and banjo. She also is a singer and songwriter and has an album of her songs on iTunes.  

Duke described what aspects she saw from the three musicians.

“The three students who won the audience vote are teenagers with many years of study and experience, but our younger students also did a beautiful job and all three recitals were a great delight from the beginning to the end,” said Duke.

CMS offers lessons on various instruments and voice for everyone regardless of their age or prior experience. 

“Our youngest student is only four years old and our oldest ones are in their 60s,” said Duke. “Our spring and fall semesters are 13 weeks long and students take one lesson per week, scheduled according to their availability. Our summer semester offers a band camp, guitar workshop, chamber music workshop and orchestra workshop in addition to private lessons.”

Duke gave insight on the plans for spring 2017 session.

“This spring session’s private lessons will begin the week of January 23 and we will also have a number of additional events,” said Duke. “In the first weekend of February 2017 we will hold the Annual Double Reed workshop, a two day educational event for bassoon and oboe players. Our Spring Festival where students perform two pieces in front of a judge and receive a sheet with constructive comments as well as pins and medals will be held in early March. We are planning to have our Beginners String Orchestra session and have the orchestra perform at the Hammond Farmers Market and at Live Oak Village of Hammond. We also plan to once again ask the audience choose the semester’s outstanding musicians at the three recitals scheduled in the beginning of May 2017.”

Duke commented on the CMS students’ performances improvement. 

“I do believe that by adding a competitive edge to our recitals we have given our students even grater motivation to practice hard and to do well and this showed in the performances of all of our students,” said Duke.

CMS is in the process of scheduling and preparing for the Spring Festival.

Our instructors are aware that the event will take place and as soon as lessons start next week, they will be choosing the pieces to be performed and start working with the students on polishing the festival pieces,” said Duke. “Festival participation is not mandatory, but is strongly encouraged and we hope that all of our students will participate.”

Anyone interested in their services may call CMS at 985-549-5502 or check their website at southeastern.edu/cms