Mighty, strong family; part of the School of Music
While individuals typically associate Texas A&M University-Kingsville’s (TAMUK) band with marching and jazz, they might not think about the overlooked sections, such as voice studio, which is under the direction of Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities Dr. Kenneth Williams.
“I think when people think about music here, the first thing that comes to mind is marching band,” Williams said. “And so, we are not necessarily first in the minds of the people.”
Although voice studio can sometimes be disregarded, students who participate in that subgenre of TAMUK music still give their performances a full 110 percent.
“Pretty much all of our performances that we’ve had as a group, I have been proud of,” student Tomas Galvan said. “We do a lot of different creative music from different genres and we’ve done music from all women composers. This year we are doing music all by Mexican composers, mostly in Spanish which is really cool.”
However, not every student will have the same exact experiences while participating in voice studio.
“It’s been a little weird since half of my experience has been affected by COVID,” student Susana Maldonado said. “During the COVID semesters, we weren’t allowed in the same room or even if we were, we had to wear a mask and couldn’t hear each other.”
While the pandemic was an issue for members of voice studio, Williams and his students did the best they could during the challenging times and still continued to grow not only as students, but as performers as a whole.
“The connections I’ve made with everyone here have been very strong and have gotten stronger, because we all struggle together and that helps us bond,” Maldonado said.
Williams and his students are always looking to get new talent and grow their studio, whether you are a music major or not.
“If music is what you want to do, then you should do it,” Williams said.
If you are interested in learning more about voice studio, please visit https://tamukvocalprogram.weebly.com/.