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Jazz Trumpeter Found the Place to Polish His Talents
Luca Stine wanted to learn in a place where being a musician is cool. After his sophomore year in high school, Stine decided to leave his private high school and audition for the Jazz Band at SCF. Since joining the band, he’s already seeing a world of opportunity. Stine, who has been playing different instruments since he was in the third grade, said he wanted to go to a school that valued music and musicians. He did his research and then found Dr. Pete Carney, director of jazz studies, and the SCF Jazz Program. It fit perfectly with what he wanted to do. And he said he fit in perfectly at SCF. “Coming here has been exciting, because there are a lot of people with similar interests,” he said. In his old high school, students were focused almost exclusively on athletics or academics. At home he was able to talk about music with his parents, who both graduated from the Manhattan School of Music and played professionally in New York City for a time. His mom plays clarinet, and his dad also is a trumpet player. After a year of studying with Carney, Stine spent the summer in New York City on a scholarship to participate in the Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Summer Jazz Academy and then in Rhode Island at Berklee’s Global Jazz Institute Workshop at the Newport Jazz Festival, where he won another scholarship. “The connections you get from these things are a very big deal,” Stine said, adding that students work with professors at the music schools they’d like to get into. Stine, who is a dual enrolled senior at SCF, hopes to get into a top music school and then eventually move to New York to perform full time on the jazz circuit there. Marcus Printup, a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, worked with Stine, giving him private lessons and mentoring him. He also learned from great musicians such as Emilio Castillo, Aaron Diehl, Ted Nash and Vincent Gardner. At the Berklee music camp he studied under Tia Fuller, a leading jazz saxophone player who works to help promote women in jazz. Stine described her as “incredible, enthusiastic and encouraging.” All of the people teaching in the Berklee and Lincoln Center programs were “passing on a legacy through their teaching,” he said. “Seeing those people inspired me.” He has been following their advice religiously. His days are now scheduled in 30-minute increments. Even his practice time is scheduled out so that he will switch out what he is practicing every 30 minutes to an hour. He might start with scales on the trumpet and then move to sound articulation and then go to fundamentals, and then he will pick up the violin and practice, before eventually moving on to the piano. He has classes scheduled so that he can practice as much as possible. One day early in the fall term, he spent more than 10 hours just practicing what he learned over the summer. He will also spend the Fall 2018 term putting together audition tapes for undergraduate programs and plans to send them to schools with some of the best music programs, including Julliard, but largely to places he believes will offer him scholarships. The schools who are impressed with his pre-screening tapes will invite him in for in-person auditions. His goal is to earn a free or very inexpensive education, preferably in New York. At SCF Stine found a place where music studies are respected, and learning is also fun. He has taken English and history classes and said the classes have helped prepare him for a university. This fall, he is enrolled in math, science and history in addition to his music classes. He enjoys his professors, who are passionate about their subjects but also available to the students. He said he learned more about world history in one class than he had ever learned.
“The teachers here…they’re not just professors—they’re exciting professors,” Stine said. “They’re not just experts in their subjects; they know how to teach.” And it’s not just in his traditional classes, Stine said. “The Jazz Program here has excelled incredibly over the last few years,” Stine said. “My improvisation has grown a lot since coming here.”
The SCF Foundation thanks the generous sponsors who made this past year’s events successful.
Annual Scholarship Luncheon
2019Save the Date - Wednesday, November 13
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STATE COLLEGE OF FLORIDA
To The Fut e
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Pam & Bibb Swain
Silver
Dawn & Mitchell Epstein
Bronze
Altez Vacations and Lois & Rudy Lucek | Dianne Anderson & Charles Knowles | Bradenton Herald | CS&L CPAs | Dolphin Aviation | Florida Power & Light Stanley Kane | Lakewood Ranch Commercial Realty | Metz, Husband & Daughton, PA | Jennifer Michell | Najmy Thompson, PL Friend
Allied Universal | Beverly Beall & R. Kemp Riechmann Foundation | CAE Healthcare | CenterState Bank | Rick & DiDi Hager Manatee Community Foundation | Mauldin & Jenkins | Neal Communities | Northern Trust | Sarasota Memorial Health Care System | SCENE Magazine Tampa Bay TRANE | Weichel Fuller Mathis Financial/Northwestern Mutual | Williamson Dacar Associates Inc. 2019Save the Date - Saturday, February 23
Stephen and Redenta Picazio Gold Platinum
Silver Symphony
Edmund & Elizabeth Campbell Foundation
Fireworks
Premier Community Bank Bronze
Atlas Building Company | Caldwell Trust Company | Wendy & Jim Cox | Doctors Hospital of Sarasota & Englewood Community Hospital | Farr Law Firm First Physicians Group | Key Agency | Jennifer Michell | Mark & Alix Morin | Pinkerton Wealth Management | Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office Sharky’s On The Pier | Weichel Fuller Mathis Financial/Northwestern Mutual | West Villages Florida Friend
Atlanta Braves Spring Training Complex | Centennial Bank | Children’s World | 1st Source Bank | Horlick & Corbridge, P.A. | Dr. Barbara Jaehne Klingbeil & Roberts, P.A. | Korszen Financial Group | Steve LaFountain, Pointe of Palms Real Estate, Inc. | Patrick Reilly | Stainless Hardware Specialists, LLC Pam & Bibb Swain | Tandem Construction 2019Save the Date - Saturday, April 6
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