Seraphic Fire spreads song through schools

By Howard Cohen

Last year, Seraphic Fire created the Miami Choral Academy, a
network of choirs in four of Miami’s inner-city schools. The kids
are not only finding their voice, but doing better in school. Here,
Director Shawn Crouch teaches students at North Miami’

Ashley Mobley loves Hannah Montana, but that was before she met
Beethoven.

Today, her aspirations have grown.

“The thing I like about this class,’’ Ashley, 11, says from a
classroom at Lorah Park Elementary in Brownsville filled with the
sound of choir singing, “is that I get to show the other side of
me, other than school. I get to do what I love — singing.’’

And sing she does. Everything from the Jewish hymn, Hine Ma Tov,
to the Beethoven canon, Ars Longa, and even Happy Birthday.

It’s a world away from the mechanized pop music beats of Hannah
Montana’s The Other Side of Me, but Ashley quickly meets the
challenge thanks to the training she and her friends are receiving
from Seraphic Fire’s Miami Choral Academy program.