11/3/2022 0 Comments Musicality network![]() ![]() When my parents bought me a piano in high school, I literally just sat there for hours making up songs and playing with harmonies. I was a wee little child when I started playing with it. My parents bought me my first keyboard when I was so young that people actually questioned them. Well, piano was, for a long time, my main instrument. Had your background in piano prepared you for teaching choir in terms of understanding tone and melody? This is my twelfth year there now, and it feels like home. These kids need a good music teacher who can push them to do their very best. The more I was at the school, the more I realized that this was where I’m needed. I taught piano for five years before I even taught choir. There are problem kids everywhere, it doesn’t matter where you are. Would I have to wear a bullet-proof vest? Am I going to have to go through security when I get there? People hear “inner-city kids” and they have such a warped mindset about them. To me, at first, it was just a job teaching piano. I wasn’t getting the calls I wanted after submitting resumes, and a friend of mine from VanderCook said, “My old high school’s hiring.” He loved Curie and put it on a pedestal, so his recommendation led me there. This was the type of school that I wanted to be in. I student taught in Schaumburg, and the school had money, they had instruments, and they already had a strong arts program. Since I grew up in the suburbs, I had a fear of city high schools, so I wanted to go teach band in the suburbs. What led you to Curie Metropolitan High School? My first job at Curie was teaching piano, and even then, I was drawing on my experience of playing piano for the high school choirs, as well as writing my own songs. ![]() That school prepared me for teaching anything. It was actually Dan Finley who pushed me into going to VanderCook College of Music in Chicago, because he went to school there, so I owe that to him. My experience in McHenry was kind of a catalyst for everything. I had always loved music, but it wasn’t until high school that I realized this is what I wanted to do with my life. ![]() I want them to know that they are my priority. They were so dedicated and cared so much about the students, and I wanted to give that to my own students. My passion for theatre and music really began thanks to Mrs. That’s an interesting question, because it is those teachers in high school who plant that seed in you. How did your experience in high school theatre form your own approach to working with teens and youth in the arts? Musicality network tv#Last month, Gibson and I met up for the first time in 16 years and had an in-depth conversation about Musicality’s origins, their experience on reality TV and their plans for the future. Needless to say, there’s no doubt Gibson has both the dream and the drive. That’s where he founded Musicality, an after school singing group that became semifinalists on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” last year. Yet the main role of Gibson’s adult life has been his teaching position at Curie Metropolitan High School on Chicago’s South Side. Gibson went on to write his own musicals, including one (entitled “Nine Lives”) that ended up being performed at the Chicago Musical Theatre Festival. With its Broadway influences, the new renaissance of Disney had shown us, at a young age, how exhilarating a story can be when it is put to song. We were there because the arts were everything to us. I was a freshman in the ensemble, and like Gibson, I loathed the musical, but that hardly mattered. “Baby get moving / Why keep your feeble hopes alive? / What are you proving? / You’ve got the dream but not the drive.” So sang Michael Gibson, bringing down the house as Teen Angel in McHenry High School’s production of “Grease,” during the spring of 2001. ![]()
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