Dr. Liana Tyson has loved to play flute since she was 12. As an undergrad, she knew she wanted to perform professionally and teach music on the college level. She pursued that life until breast cancer opened her mind and heart to a new path.
Last fall, Tyson, 37, became the music teacher at Immaculate Conception School in North Little Rock. This is her first job teaching outside a university.
Tyson, who holds a doctorate of musical arts, has taught music at the University of Alabama, Boise State University in Idaho and the University of Central Arkansas and Hendrix College, in Conway.
As a professional flutist, Tyson has played in concerts all over the world.
She also played with the Boise Philharmonic and currently substitutes for the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.
Tyson left her position at Boise State four years ago to join her husband, a music professor at UCA. She taught music classes at UCA and Hendrix until she accepted the job at Immaculate Conception in August 2007.
Teaching children had always been in the back of her mind, but it was during cancer treatment that she really began to evaluate her role in the world. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2006.
“I was thinking, ’Am I doing enough? Is this what I want to be doing? Am I helping people as much as I can? Am I doing what I can to change the face of education in my community for the better?’” she said.
Though it was an aggressive type of cancer, she said she caught it early and never felt she might die. She received her last treatment the day before getting the Immaculate Conception job.
“I was ready to start this whole new life and just all of these coincidences came together and I ended up here the next week,” she said. “I just knew it was the right thing. … I just knew. I thought this is it. This is what I’ve been waiting for.”
She teaches music history, rhythm, singing, how to read music and play recorders and Orff instruments (pitched percussion instruments in the xylophone family) to kindergarten through fifth-grade students. She also helps prepare classes to sing as a choir for weekly all-school Masses.
Tyson said she loves teaching children because they are eager and have a great capacity to learn. The best part being their energy and enthusiasm.
“In every other performing situation I’ve ever had, you had to prove yourself and then they decide if they’re going to applaud or not,” Tyson said. “(The students) are just thrilled the second I get that flute out and I’m surprised every time it happens … Their faces light up and they start clapping and every time I’m like, ’Oh my gosh, this is the greatest job ever.’”
Tyson is also teaching the students to edit and record songs on CD. She and her students made a Christmas CD last fall on which each grade sang and played instruments. For the next CD, she said she wants the students to write their own music and perform it.
Next year, she plans to add music classes for sixth and seventh graders. To do that, she needs new Orff instruments. The existing xylophones and marimbas are too small for the older students. She said she is seeking donations of any standard-sized percussion and other band or orchestra instruments for next fall.
Tyson said she has not kept her cancer a secret. When the school year began her hair was just beginning to grow back. She even joked with her students when teaching them about composer Antonio Vivaldi. She told them her husband nicknamed her “Antonio Bibaldi” when she lost her hair, hoping the association would help them remember the composer.
At one point the fifth grade class won a game and the prize they chose was to see a photo of her bald.
“I think it’s good for them to see somebody who is a cancer survivor who has a normal life and has a lot of energy and can work hard,” she said. “And then if someone in their family gets cancer, they might not get as scared.”
Though she continues to be regularly screened, she said she doesn’t worry about the cancer coming back.
“I feel like if I can fight it once, I might can fight it again,” she said. “I felt like it was hard, but I felt like I could do it with help from my family.”
Diane Wolfe, Immaculate Conception principal, said Tyson “is a godsend.”
“There is no doubt in my mind she is meant to be here,” she said. “I just lost a daughter to cancer and (Tyson) came in and I could see we needed her and she needed us.”
As for the students, Wolfe said where they dreaded music class before, “now they’re excited.”
“Fifth graders give up their lunch or recess to come in and play and get instruction on percussion instruments,” Wolfe said.
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