Gina Hart-Kemper - a musical life

Gina Hart-Kemper found her calling when she was in the fourth grade. It wasn’t playing piano. She said it only took a two-month battle with her mom trying to teach her to play before Gina, just a first-grader, realized that wasn’t going to work. But her calling did involve music.

“I still remember it clearly,” Gina said of that time in the fourth grade. “I heard somebody demonstrate the flute, and that was it for me.”

Dr. Gina Hart-Kemper

That’s not to say she was a prodigy or anything similar. No, in fact, she couldn’t even coax a sound out of the flute the first day she tried. But she continued to practice, finally mastering the instrument. She went on to receive a doctorate of music arts, and has performed and taught throughout the country. “Now I’m known as the person with the pretty sound,” Gina said.

She is in good company as a flutist. George Washington, James Madison, Leonardo da Vinci, Edgar Allan Poe, Tchaikovsky and Henry Mancini all are known to have played the flute. As are the actress Halle Berry and former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.

Gina said trying to figure out what to do for a career was a little bit challenging when she was of college age. Her family didn’t necessarily think that a career in music would amount to much, according to their idea of success. “Al I knew was I could play the flute and that was what I wanted to do, Gina said.”

She did purse a teaching degree for a while, because she knew she loved teaching, but found that for her, the degrees in music performance came easier. And those degrees did indeed open doors for her that led to being able to teach.

Gina teaches both adults and children, and said they learn completely differently. “Adults have more of an idea of what they should sound like,” she said. “They have higher expectations and get more frustrated. But kids, they’re happy just to pick up the flute and play.”

She said the flute, for as popular as it is, can be quite frustrating to learn. Rather than blowing into the opening, you have to blow above the opening, she explained. Having good lung capacity is, of course, a benefit, which makes the ability of one of her students so surprising.

Gina said she teaches a middle school student who has cystic fibrosis, which severely affects breathing. “But she plays the flute like you can’t believe,” Gina said. “She probably beats out a lot of kids her age.” In fact, her lessons tend to serve as breathing treatments, though there are many times, Gina said, that she has to pause to calm down and catch her breath so she can resume.

Another student Gina teaches is a little girl with Tourette Syndrome, a neurological disorder that manifests itself in multiple motor and vocal tics. Gina said that learning to play the flute has helped give her a focus and increased her self-confidence.

One of the adults Gina teaches is a pharmacist from Iran who had no previous music experience.  “He really wanted to play the flute,” she said, “and stuck it out. He’s really improved and enjoys it.” His motivation was that he wanted to play the Persian flute, called a ney, and has since learned how to do so.

Gina is one of a group of co-owners of the Village Music Academy in Prairie Village, where she teaches two days a week. She also teaches a music appreciation class through the Ft. Scott Community College, and directs the handbell choir at Holy Cross. Besides flute, Gina teaches private piano lessons, after having taught herself how to play in middle school. And she continues to perform solo and in ensembles.

Music is of primary importance to Gina, and she works to keep it in schools, in spite of budget cuts, by volunteering her time to help band directors ready students for competitions. She also is a volunteer judge for competitions at the middle and high school level. She believes everyone can benefit from learning music.

“From my perspective, it’s all good,” Gina said. “You learn discipline, how to listen, confidence, how to motivate yourself. And it’s okay to make mistakes. I tell students that making mistakes is how you learn. Music fills our souls. It stimulates the brain but also stimulates the heart.”

She said that while she loves teaching, there are times when she thinks about stepping away. But then someone tells her, “You can’t quit because you have to respect the gift God gave you. Quit and you’ll be miserable.” Gina said that’s true, because when she did try to quit, she was miserable.