More Idol Time At Mississippi School For The Arts

MSA Student Jasmine Murray on American Idol

The Mississippi School of the Arts in Brookhaven recieved a lot of national exposure this year when one of their students appeared on the tv talent show American Idol. And as MPB arts reporter Ron Brown tells us, it's about to happen again.

On the first floor, a student and his teacher rehearse a vocal performance to the Broadway music of Man of La Mancha. Upstairs another is class is warming up with exercise before beginning their classic ballet instruction. Down the hall, they’re studying great works of literary brilliance, the theatrical lessons of Stanislavsky, the romantic poetry of Shakespeare and expressive ideas in painting as the choir begins raising their voices as one.

It is just another day at school - high school at the Mississippi School of the Arts in Brookhaven.

“We’re all just regular kids…”

17-year-old Senior Austin Williams is in his second and final year at MSA.

“…we just focus more on acting singing, dancing, writing, and painting. That’s what separates us, I think.”

This small residential school is open to kids from all across the state, but it is a select group. This is one high school where you have to audition before you’re accepted. And there’s a one thousand dollar tuition for room and board at the school dorms. While there is an emphasis on the arts, the basic academic work is rigorous. But executive director Suzanne Hirsch says in the school’s seven year history, not a single student has failed to graduate.

“We have a 100 percent graduation rate. And in the three years we’ve been keeping state test scores, we have a 100 percent pass rate. They’ve gone from the 86th percentile to the 96th percentile in state testing for history so I think that we are definitely doing something right.”

What they're doing right includes sending students out into the world to compete for scholarships and singing competitions all ove the country including the national television show American Idol. When the finalists were cut down to the final 13 last season MSA Junior Jasmine Murray was there.

She credits her instruction at Mississippi School of the Arts with a lot of her success.

“It’s helped me in a lot of different ways. It’s helped me be more independent as a person. It taught me to challenge myself more vocally, and just being with all different types of people who are all involved in the arts and they all love what they do and I think that’s the amazing thing and it’s helped me to be more focused on what I want to do.”

With so many gifted singers at the small school, nobody there was really surprised that a student did well on American Idol. And Suzanne Hirsch says it's just the beginning. Next season American Idol will feature another singer trained at the Mississippi School of the Arts.

“We have another student who made it to Hollywood. He’ll be in this coming season. We don’t know how much information will be aired on the actual show. And we don’t know how far he went, but he did go to Hollywood from the Chicago auditions.”

There are confidentiality agreements which will not allow Hirsch to name the American Idol contestant, so we’ll just have to wait. The TV show exposure helps the school in one respect, but Hirsch says she doesn’t want the state to view it just as a prep school for American Idol, that she says would be short selling their mission.

“That’s certainly not our focus. Our focus is to give students an arts education that is second to none.”

And with all of the accomplishments coming out of the school, Hirsh says nobody can ever accuse them of being idle. For MPB News, I’m Ron Brown.