Vocalist heading to LaGuardia High

Posted

Lashanique Znya Mourning is following her musical dreams to LaGuardia High School for the Arts in Manhattan next school year. She was admitted after a highly competitive process.

Znya (the “Z” is silent) is an eighth-grade student with a talent for singing at the Mark Twain School for the Gifted and Talented in Brooklyn. Every day she and her great-grandmother Sandra Green leave their Ft. Independence Houses apartment to catch the 5:01 am bus to the D train that takes them all the way to Coney Island.

But now that she got in her first choice high school, which is much closer to her home, Znya will be commuting on her own.

“I feel a little bit of freedom because I’ll be going to 66th street by myself, but I think I’m going to be a little upset because I won’t have her there, right by my side,” Znya, 14, confessed. 

“It’s been a run, but it was worth it,” Ms. Green said. Once at Coney Island, she would wait for Znya while working in the school’s parents’ association room. 

Next year, Ms. Green plans on taking some time for herself, though.

“I’m going to try to rest or go shopping or something. I know it’s going to be something because I’m used to moving around, anyhow,” she said.

But Ms. Green soon added she wanted to at least take her great-granddaughter to school the first week.

Being admitted to the LaGuardia High School, located on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, is quite an achievement. It’s the only one of the city’s seven admissions-based specialized schools with a focus on arts education. 

“When I found out, I was so happy,” Znya recalled.  She wasn’t entirely surprised though, as she said, “They kind of gave me like a little hint… at the audition, they said they’re going to see me in the springtime.”

For her audition, Znya performed her favorite song, “Summertime” from the musical “Porgy and Bess.” “‘Summertime’ has a really great meaning. It’s a lullaby, so it’s a nice, soothing, sweet tone when you sing it and I love it,” Znya said.

LaGuardia High School is renowned for its specialization in art, dance, drama, instrumental music, technical theatre and vocal music. This year, 664 students were chosen from more than 9,000 applicants, according to the school’s website.

“It’s small, but it’s like enough. Each talent has its own room, you get one on one time with the teacher and on the weekend you might come in and have like a little session,” Znya said.

She thinks what prepared her most to get into her dream school was the work she did with one of her teachers at Mark Twain.

“My vocal teacher, she’ll like have us sing [our solos] in front of the whole class. That makes you comfortable singing in front of other people, and she’ll criticize us, tell us things we need to work on and what we did good. And if we really need help, she’ll have a time to come one-on-one with her,” Znya explained.

She is looking forward to individualized sessions with teachers at LaGuardia, too.

“[These are] times when I can better understand myself as a vocalist,” the student said. “Maybe my vocal teacher can point out things that I can’t really point out in my own self.”

She hopes to be a professional singer once she graduates.

“I’d really like to be on Broadway, that would be nice,” Znya said. Her experience to date includes middle school stagings of “The Wizard of Oz” and “Annie.”

And if singing doesn’t work out, “my backup would… become a doctor. When I was younger, I used to want to be a cardiologist, but now I think I want to be a pediatrician,” she said.

But for now, it looks like four years at LaGuardia high school are just what the doctor ordered.

Znya Mourning, Sandra Green, Alice Guilhamon

Comments