The final knockouts for The Voice airs Monday night but Kansas City’s very own Casi Joy has already won her round.
Before Joy took the stage on the big screen, 11 years ago she showed off her talents as a student at the School of Rock.
“We’re just so proud of her,” Joy’s former music director, David Rice said. “When our location first opened up in October of 2006, she was a student within our first productions and of course she shined through anything that she sang.”
School of Rock is a performance-based music program that teaches young children and adults.
“What we do is instead of going the traditional lines of teaching on the one on one, we still have our one on one interaction, but we still have the group perspective,” Rice said. “Not only do they get through their lessons where they learn their final points on how they play their instrument, they get to interact with the other students and they get to learn to perform as a team on stage.”
Joy later became a vocal teacher at the School of Rock.
“She also launched what we call our Little Wing program which is our kinder music type aged group students,” Rice said. “She really helped build that out.”
Rice said joy has a natural talent and a powerful voice that shined through at the School of Rock.
“I’ve been here now for 11 years and it's just seeing the generations of people such as Casi, not only take what they learn with us, but take it to the next level and that's the most rewarding thing for me,” Rice said.
Rice says it’s an exciting time for the city.
“We're sitting there cheering for her and any time a musician can come out of Kansas City and really go to that next level, you know it means even more to us that it's one of our own,” Rice said. “Good luck Casi! We’re cheering for you here at The School of Rock.”
You can catch NBC’s The Voice at 7 p.m Monday.
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Rae Daniel can be reached at Rae.Daniel@KSHB.com.
