Lutheran High School offers so many different academies to its students, including one often overlooked option, the Music Academy. We interviewed Mrs. Andersen and got a lot of wonderful insights and feedback about this program, which is offered to juniors and seniors here at Lutheran High School.

This academy was created by Mr. Loesel two years before Mrs. Andersen took it over, and it has been at Lutheran ever since. Some of the struggles that Mrs. Andersen originally faced when she first started Music Academy was that she did not really know how to guide students, especially seniors, in completing their capstone projects. Capstone projects are very important and required assignments during your senior year depending on what academy you go into. In Music Academy, your project is a compilation of what you have learned based on the multitude of tracks that you can choose from including Performance, Composition, Church Music, Studies in Jazz, and Music Education.

Now, however, Mrs. Andersen has a great deal of experience with the students in Music Academy and loves to help anyone who wants to get better at music. This Academy is a program at LuHi where students can learn and experiment with various genres of music and also look into different career paths they might pursue in their lives as well.

Mrs. Andersen states that she would like to see more students and apply to and explore  Music Academy because she loves seeing the curiosity of her students take over and has experienced how music can impact their lives in so many ways.

Some of the pros of joining Music Academy are that a student can get credit for something that they are already probably focusing on in high school. Academy members also get to shadow professionals in the industry, which can also help them to prepare for the majors they might be wanting to go into in college, along with college auditions to get into those programs.

The only qualities that Mrs. Andersen requires students to have are “good time management, along with a motivation to learn because there is no class time to work on their musical studies.” She also said, “Students must do a lot of the work on their own time but that it pays off in the long run.” 

One of the impacts that Music Academy has had on students at Lutheran is that some members have joined just because they enjoy music and simply want to learn more, but Mrs. Andersen has seen the mindsets in these students change, and several of them have even gone on to become professional musicians.

Mrs. Andersen has also seen many spiritual changes within Music Academy students at Lutheran, which is something she would love to witness even more of in the future. Some of the spiritual aspects of Music Academy include how theology impacts music and a deeper exploration into how Lutheran theology especially is the basis for western music theory. One other very important thing Academy members make sure to incorporate is prayer into every single performance, including the junior recital and students’ capstone projects.

Overall, Music Academy is a very helpful resource for students who love music and are considering pursuing it as a career in the future. There are many benefits that students can experience by joining Music Academy, and Mrs. Andersen encourages students to consider becoming members because she has seen the program affect many young peoples’ lives both musically and spiritually.