Here’s a story of trying to give back by paying forward.
I can’t possibly repay my mentors for the way they shaped me. But I can celebrate them, tell them what they mean to me, try to honor them with my own teaching, and when the opportunity presents itself, I can make sure that more students get the same inspiration that I was gifted.
In my speech before the 2023 MSVMA Michigan All-State Jazz Choir performance, I closed my introduction with the following:
On a personal note; when I was a student the age of the students in the All-State Jazz Choir, April Tini changed my life as the conductor of my extracurricular jazz choir. It is not overstating to say that I am in this career because of the inspiration and encouragement she gave me. It gives me great pleasure to watch her give the same inspiration and encouragement to these lucky twenty students, and I’m especially proud that singing in a vocal jazz group with April Tini is now an experience I share with my own son.
Truly, I was proud to see all 20 students from across Michigan share in that experience.
As a high school sophomore in 1992, I started singing in an after-school vocal jazz group with April. The three years I sang with her, plus the private jazz voice lessons and the Phil Mattson camps that she encouraged me to attend and prepared me for, are a huge part of why I direct, write, and teach music today. I loved singing in choir before I sang with her, but I fell in love with vocal music, and specifically with close harmony, thanks to her.
Part of my mission this weekend, then, was to show my appreciation by giving back some of what I got from April. It was an honor to facilitate and support her leadership of the All-State Jazz Choir, and to watch her teaching and directing, which is just as brilliant as I remember – human and loving, but with high standards, fast pacing, and so hip!
That’s the paying forward part of giving back. I often feel that the best thing that my students could do to say thank you is to keep making music and pay it forward to other people. Giving twenty high school students a taste of what I got as her student was my way of paying forward and celebrating April.