After graduating from Iola High School in 2008, Elizabeth Cunningham enrolled in Allen Community College and entered upon a course of study that would make her, in time, an art teacher.
But plans change and courses alter. One day in art class, maybe she was daubing away at some old canvas, Cunningham heard on the classroom radio a transmission from a better world. “It was classical music,” said Cunningham. “I just kept thinking, ‘Wow, I wish I was doing that instead.’ The whole time I just thought: That might mean something for me. Just hearing it made me want to be there, doing it. That was the first sign.”
Cunningham quickly changed her focus to music, and after graduating from ACC, enrolled at Emporia State University. There, she played violin in the orchestra and sang in the Hornet choir, and declared herself, officially, a music education major.
Today marks the recent grad’s first full day as Iola’s new middle and high school vocal and strings instructor.
OF COURSE the tickle in her ear on that day in art class was hardly Cunningham’s first realization that she had the bug for music.
“Both my parents were music majors,” explained Cunningham, “so my whole family has been immersed in it since birth.” And what a family it is. Twelve siblings. And all of them, at least at some point in their lives, engaged with music. “We didn’t have a choice,” she joked, “but we loved it.”
Cunningham recalls a happy household strewn with instruments, filing cabinets bursting with sheet music.
“My mom really loved the violin but never had the opportunity to play,” remembered Cunningham, “so she wanted her kids to.”
Not all of the siblings stuck with their forte, however, said Cunningham. “Some had families and stuff.” But enough did that they can assemble on short notice to provide entertainment for weddings, funerals, church functions or other social engagements around town. “And my dad always accompanies us on the piano.”
“But my mom’s ultimate dream,” said Cunningham, “was to see all of us going out and playing together.” And now for The Cunningham Dozen. “But that didn’t happen. The main thing, though, was that she loved music and my dad loved music, and that’s what they gave to us.”
AND IT’S what she hopes to give to her students at Iola. This is her first job in her chosen career, and, to her mind, she lucked out.
“I was so excited to see the opportunity in my hometown come up,” said Cunningham. “Iola would have been my first pick, but I didn’t expect there would be an opening. I’m so thankful.”
Cunningham will spend her first few days getting to know her students: on the orchestra side, learning who plays what instrument; and, in choir, listening, in turn, to each of the pupil’s voices.
Cunningham’s ears are used to the sounds of professional musicians. She’ll have to adjust her expectations to greet the waves of untrained voices that wash over any middle school music teacher. And so, what do you tell the shy sixth-grade girl who approaches your piano for a vocal test, trembling? Or the pubescent boy, strapped to the mechanical bull of his own violent hormones, whose every other utterance is an involuntary squawk?
“First off, I tell them that no one is perfect,” said Cunningham, whose wide smile and soft voice imply an enormous patience. “And that I’m not here to judge you. I want all the kids to know that. We’re all coming into this at different levels.” But there are few exercises in vulnerability more acute than singing in public, especially in front of your peers. Cunningham knows this. “The main thing is for them to enjoy the music, and to experience it together, and to really try as hard as they can.”
BECAUSE IF you do, she insists, the rewards are immense. Her early exposure to music has been a mainstay in her life. “The arts, music, it just opens up your mind to so many different aspects of life really. And it allows you to experience history, too,” reflects Cunningham, who was raised, mostly, on classical music and hymns. “You’re hearing something that someone wrote so many years ago, centuries ago probably, and it sounds now just like what they heard. Maybe it will make you feel the same way they did back then, too. The same emotion. Because of the music.”
And it’s this lesson, among others, that she wants to leave her students: The beautiful notion that by playing music you are helping to transfer a single feeling through time.
