Looking for a piano teacher or guitar teacher for your child?    Our instructors are highly qualified musicians.   As a team, we provide quality musical education, piano lessons, guitar lessons, and singing lessons to children at all ages and skill levels, babies through 12 years old.

Georgia A. Abbott

Miss Georgia

Georgia A. Abbott moved to Midland in 1998 and, while pursuing her MBA, simultaneously opened The Children’s School of Music, LLC, an early-childhood music program. Since 1999, the school has grown to an enrollment of over 130 area children each year and provides extension programs for Midland’s daycare, preschool, library and MCFTA music outreach programs. In 11 years, The Children’s School of Music has provided music education to over 900 children.

Georgia holds a B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Music Performance from Kalamazoo College. She is a classically trained pianist and is proficient on harpsichord and forte piano. She has performed in several Music Society shows at MCFTA and is the main singer in “Mr. Abbott,” an alternative rock band in Midland. She holds an M.B.A. from the Richard DeVos Graduate School of Management at Northwood University and was voted Who’s Who in American Business Schools for the class of 2001 by the Northwood University faculty.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, she worked 14 years for General Motors Corporation in Chicago, IL, and Detroit, MI. She held multiple management positions in Manufacturing, Vehicle Development, Advanced Engineering, Commodities Management and worldwide Purchasing. In 1997 she received the GM President’s Award for Outstanding Creativity and Innovation.

In 2004, she and her business partner and husband, David Emmel, started up Abbott & Emmel Consulting, LLC. This firm provides strategic, marketing and operational consulting to tri-city area companies, primarily family owned businesses. Additionally, Georgia holds an adjunct faculty position at Richard DeVos Graduate School of Management at Northwood University specializing in Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Marketing. Her responsibility is to teach hands-on field work consulting to full-time graduate students and develop curriculum for applying academic management tools in actual business environments.

Corey Musonda

Miss Corey

Corey Musonda has been with the Children’s School of Music since 2006.  Since then, she has contributed greatly to expanding the curriculum at our school by leveraging the Harmony Road concepts into our own unique program for teaching guitar to children, as well as extending the Harmony Road  toddler program to our develop a class for non-walking babies, “Baby Harmony”.

Corey completed her bachelor’s degree in music from Michigan State University in 2003 and completed board certification as a music therapist in early 2004. She then traveled to Lusaka, Zambia (Africa), to volunteer at Jon Hospice Children’s Center, providing music therapy to children suffering from HIV/AIDS and poverty. In 2005 she took a position at Lusaka International Community School teaching Early Learning Center and K-3 music in addition to providing music therapy within the Learning Support Department, teaching guitar and co-directing the high school band, orchestra and choir. Also during that time, she began a private early childhood music class for expatriate families living in Lusaka in order to raise money for less fortunate families. In August 2006 she returned to the states to join TCSOM!

Most recently, Corey has also taken on a new interest in music therapy, and works as a Music Therapist for the Lutheran Homes of Michigan.

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Sonja Roden

Miss Sonja

Sonja’s musical journey began at the young age of 3 when she performed as a regular cast member on the Romper Room TV show in Chicago.  Her love for music, performance and theater has stayed with her for life, and she has carved out a performance and theatrical niche devoted primarily to children.

Sonja has sung in choirs and performed in theatrical stage productions since the age of 6, with a strong focus on singing, acting, and dancing.  She is an accomplished dancer and gymnast, as well as theatrical performer.  She went on to sing in the performing choir at Rochester College, Rochester HIlls MI, and graduate with a degree in Early Childhood Development.

Sonja’s professional career has included the managing and directing of various Day Cares, Day Camps, and Summer Camp programs around Michigan, as well as multiple Nanny jobs over the years.  Most recently she has helped managed Youth Camp programs at our own Midland Community Center.  She has also taught and coached dance and gymnastics to children for years.

She remains heavily involved in musical performance and stage productions throughout the area, serving in roles as singer/actor, director, onset/offset production manager, and choreographer.   Venues of involvement include the Midland Center for the Arts Theatre Guild, Peanut Gallery, and TMI (Teenage Musicals Inc.), as well as other local performing groups such as the Bay City Players, Van Buren Street Theatre in Bay City, and the new Restoration Theater group in Midland.  She has also directed and choreographed at the college level at SVSU and Rochester College.  One of the most rewarding things she has done is tour with the “Pied Pipers” Improvisational Children’s Theater troop that performs for children across the USA and Canada. Sonja’s love for music, children, and performance significantly contribute to enriching our music programs for Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers at The Children’s School of Music. In her spare time, when she isn’t teaching at the music school, caring for children, or directing and performing, Sonja enjoys playing ultimate frisbee and working out at the Midland Community Center.  And at any given time, you might catch her engaging with the nearest baby or toddler she can find to play with.

Christina Westbury

Miss Chrissy

Christina Westbury was inspired to become an instructor at TCSOM after attending classes with her own young children.  Miss Chrissy teaches guitar and the Harmony Road series.  Her focus is mainly on the “middle” age groups in our program — Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd graders.

Miss Chrissy’s musical background is founded in singing and performance.  Since the young age of 5, she has participated and performed in various musical choirs and theatrical groups in her school, church, and home town community of Traverse City, MI.

As a child she took piano lessons, but her passion was always in learning the notes so she could sing them.  This is an interesting connection to Harmony Road, as singing and playing the solfege are so tightly connected in the program.   By junior high, she transitioned to voice lessons and was lucky enough to have a teacher in Traverse City who came from the Metropolitan Opera as a Soprano.  By junior high, Miss Chrissy was already singing in honors choirs and playing lead roles in both community and school musicals.

Chrissy continued singing in choirs and performing in musicals throughout her college years at CMU, where she majored in Anthropology w/ a minor in Museum Studies.  After graduating she put her degree to work in Museum Education, developing a background in non-traditional educational styles, outside of traditional classrooms.

Chrissy’s current projects include being a founding member of Midland’s Restoration Theatre.  She has also performed with  Midland’s Music Society, Theatre Guild, and the Bay City’s Van Buren Street Theatre, as well as directed performances of Midland’s Peanut Gallery Theatre for children.

Her greatest interest and passion is for education outside the classroom… beyond the 3 R’s.  “No education is complete without a basic grounding in music  When you learn it at a young age, its always there for you.  It’s a second language you can build on and enjoy as an adult”.

Jessica McFarland

Miss Jessica

Jessica lives in Midland with her husband, dog, Sir Lancelot, and cat, Peanut.   She is a new instructor at the school this year, focused on younger children’s programs and Music-on-the-go.

Jessica comes from a musical theater background, and is heavily involved in local theater groups.  She is also co-founder of the local summer stock organization, the Curtain Call Community Players.

Jessica loves working with kids of all ages.   She worked in outdoor environmental education in Jackson, MI for several years, and more recently has worked with the Chippewa Nature Center day camps and Bullock Creek High School Forensics Team.

Jessica is also a part-time photographer and, in her free time, she likes to read, hike, and thrift shop.

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Nicole Fisher

Miss Nicole

Nicole began taking classes at The Children’s School of Music when she was 5 years old.  She joined the Siebert Elementary School band in 5th grade, playing the clarinet.  While at Jefferson Middle School, she continued playing the clarinet, sang in the choir, began taking drum lessons and joined the Resonators Percussion Ensemble, along with her ongoing classes at TCSOM.  Now a sophomore at Dow High School, Nicole’s clarinet is very active in the marching band, concert band, and pep band.  She recently auditioned and was accepted into the school’s top symphonic band.  She  also put her piano skills to work in the jazz band; and she is now challenging herself to learn the alto saxophone.