With Fanfare now entering its third week, members of the Southeastern Community Music School (CMS) worked hard to put on a special event for their 15th anniversary.

The performers, most of whom are still students in grade school, along with alumni members, performed a variety of songs on a variety of instruments. Perhaps two of the most well-received performances were played by Emma Bing, 9, with the other coming from CMS Jazz Combo. Emma, with guitar in hand, sung a beautiful rendition of “Dreams, “originally written by Priscilla Ahn. The CMS Jazz Combo performed two songs, the first being “Song for My Father,” by Horace Silver, and the last being “All Blues” by Miles Davis.

The Combo, consisting of Justin Pardue on the trombone, Joshua Pardue on the trumpet, Jonathan Blount on alto saxophone, Corey Reeves on tenor saxophone, Zakk Garner playing the guitar, and Robert Repak on the bass guitar, all former instructors of the CMS, or current students at Southeastern.

“I learned about this performance through a jazz combo class I’m taking at the university,” Jonathan Blount, a sophomore Music Performance major said. “I’ve been doing this for about 6 years now, so, I’m not really nervous in this particular setting.”

Other performances came from Ashley Johansen, a senior at Covington High School, accompanied by Dragos Filip on the cello, and Elizabeth Weathersby on the piano, Anne Labranche, flexing her vocal talents, accompanied by Liliia Oliinyk on the piano.

“It took us a few months to really get everything set up. We started looking around in the summer to see who’d be performing what, and what the lineup would be,” Interim Director of the Southeastern CMS Jivka Jeleva said. “A lot of the talent we have here came to us. We have been on a few recruiting trips, but most of what you see here is the talent of south Louisiana came to us.”

The audience response was very positive.

“It was a very enjoyable, surprising performance from Emma (Bing),” spectator Mary Jo Greaves said. “I was truly inspired to see someone her age perform like that.” All in all, the 15th anniversary was successful , with the last performance of the afternoon coming from the interim director and the CMS string ensemble, all of the young violinists performing on stage, together. If this is a sign of anything, then the Southeastern Community Music School will flourish in the coming years.