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DETROIT FREE PRESS
5 QUESTIONS WITH .... TAMI MORSE
By Alex P. Kellogg - Free Press
Staff Writer
Tami Morse has been coming home for the past two years to run a summer music camp at her mother’s school, the Steppingstone School for Gifted Education. Steppingstone, in Farmington Hills, originally was located in Plymouth. It was founded in 1981 by Morse's mother, Kiyo Morse, who lives in Northville. It is for gifted children who sometimes have trouble in traditional classrooms. The private school has about 60 kids, is open to students between kindergarten and eighth grade, and offers a host of summer camps, including the three-week Summer Music Academy that Tami Morse founded last year with her fiancé, Marc Levine. This year's camp will feature a final concert at the school July 25 at 7 p.m. Morse says they haven't come up with a name for it yet, but they're excited that the performance will feature not only six local campers, but nine violin students from Thailand. The Thai students were invited to attend the camp this year by Morse, who found them through a personal connection at the school. Morse, 30, who grew up in Plymouth, now lives with her fiancé in Islip, N.Y., where they are both professional musicians. They say the camp concert, which will feature classical chamber music and orchestral pieces, will be a great opportunity for people to get to know the school better.
QUESTION: Would you tell us about the school and this camp you run?
ANSWER: It's a school for gifted children. In the summer, they have all these special programs. The program I'm running ... my mother last year called and asked me if I'd be interested in running (it). The summer music program is for middle through high school-aged students. ... We wanted to start a music program where kids don't need to get away from home. ... That's much more expensive. We also wanted a program where there would be a focus on chamber music; most music camps focus on orchestra music.
Q: How did you connect with the students from Thailand who've come to participate this year?
A: Their violin teacher in Thailand is the mother of a friend of mine (Jennifer Huang) who is also teaching here. Her mother has a violin studio in Thailand, and so my friend told me, "I can talk to my mother; her students might like to be in this program." So she's the one who set up the connection for them to come over.
Q: Have you been enjoying having those kids here?
A: Yeah, they're really great kids. They're really hardworking. They all speak perfect English. They all go to an international school in Thailand, so there are no language issues. ... It's been really fun so far.
Q: You play the harpsichord and piano, and attended Steppingstone and later the University of Michigan. People at the school say you started teaching piano at 12. Is that so?
A: I taught students that were much younger than me, like beginning piano students, and yeah, I really liked teaching when I was younger, and I realized I could teach them. So I thought, why not?
Q: You and your fiancé met in grad school in New York City but actually went to Michigan's Interlochen camp together, even though he's from Minnesota?
A: Yeah, we must have passed each other at some point |
