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Summer Classes in the Fulshear Texas area coming soon!

2015 was a difficult year for me personally, but 2016 is really looking up. I'll be starting Summer classes soon. So, stay tuned for the schedule and sign up information! Blessings, Cathy

Exciting plans!

I apologize for not updating the blog sooner, we've moved, and life took over. However, it is with great excitement to announce that I'm planning all sorts of fun classes, as well as a couple more surprises. I am doing a great deal of performing and teaching in our new community. More details to come!

Please check out my last post for a detailed bio.

Viva Musika!!! UPDATE "Life took over" is an understatement. But, things are back on track, and I'm ready to start teaching again. Stay tuned for an exciting Summer Schedule for 2016!

Cathy Dietsch Bio, and an update regarding her classes and performing!

Cathy Dietsch is the daughter of the "Master Teacher of Master Teachers" Mark A Williams .Cathy has vast world wide experience in performing and teaching.

Having recently moved, Cathy is already getting very much involved in her new community of Fulshear, Texas. She's just finished a musical review at her family's new church, the First Fulshear United Methodist Church, where she sang in many group numbers, as well as a trio, duet, and the solo "Colors of the Wind". She is now in rehearsals for Arts Fulshear's production of "Death and Taxes", a murder mystery, where she is playing the drama teacher. Last year, she sang with the Lone Star Symphonic Band (Katy, TX) in both large choral settings, as well as a very touching small group number for their Fourth of July concert. One of her favorite things to do is singing her favorite, "O Holy Night" with various churches around the country at Christmas time, (she loves Christmas music!). She will be leading the music time for VBS at the church, as well as helping with activities for the Summer Arts Camp. She's having a great time singing with the church choir, doing her favorite thing- singing praises to the Lord!

Cathy has many goals for Musika Lingua including more children's classes, teaching voice lessons, and forming a family friendly performing arts troupe for mothers and children, called "Stage Moms". She is very passionate about including children, of all ages, in the arts. After all, if we exclude them from events, how will the arts continue into the future?!

Through her Kodaly expertise, her early child hood music classes will include, but are not limited to,  programs for students ages 0-7 years of age which will include singing, percussion, theatre, movement, and story time with music being at the core. Her courses emphasize musicianship and your children will go home singing and wanting more! Also in the works is a program for "Mommy and Me" for pregnant women and babies. With an emphasis on singing, young children will gain a life long appreciation for music and will gain invaluable skills for further music endeavors. Through singing, one becomes more equipped for further musical instruments, and studies.

Cathy's Bio:

Cathy started her music education when she was "in the womb". Being a product of one of the world's leading Kodaly experts, Cathy learned music with this kinetic approach through her own father, Mark A. Williams.

When Cathy was a young child, she had delayed speech due to many ear surgeries and hearing loss. Through her own father, she learned how to sing before she was forming any audible words. In elementary school, she was in special education for speech therapy. However, her music classes, both at home with her father, and at her school, remained her favorite subject! As such, she has a passion for music for special needs children, and has hopes of working more in this area in the future.

Cathy grew up around choirs, operas, theatre, orchestras and bands, due to her parent's and brother's great involvement in the arts. Her own desires to perform were formed at a very early age. At the age of four, she was in her first opera with St.Mary's University Opera Department, in the opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, where her older brother played the leading role for the Governor of Mexico, under the direction of their father, Mark A Williams.

Cathy continued her love of music and theatre and had big dreams which lead her to where she is today. In high school she was very involved in theatre, choir, and was a percussionist on the drum line, she continued her percussion days in college and beyond, her specialties included four mallet marimba and tympani in orchestras and bands. Having studied opera and musical theatre at the collegiate level and beyond, her love of music and theatre lead her to eventually perform and teach all over the world. Her music took her to exotic places such as London, New York City, Malibu, Vienna, and Sydney Australia! She holds a BFA in music performance, but continues to study through private lessons, workshops, and specialized programs. She holds her BFA from Lake Erie College in Ohio, and has also studied at Pepperdine University Opera Institute, Miami University, and AMDA (New York City). She continued to learn about music education through her own father until she sadly lost him in April of 2013. Cathy and Mark A Williams owned the business "Musika Lingua" together and through their business, they exchanged notes, and were a "bouncing board" for each other, (obviously she feels that she was the one doing most of the learning, even though he always said that he learned from his students every day.) In 2005, Cathy had the privilege of being her father's "shadow" in Hong Kong when she visited him for an extended period of time. During this stay, she learned all his musical "tricks" and was thrilled to have taken roughly 150 pages of notes about music education just by observing his classes, and spending invaluable time chatting after school! A year later, Cathy flew back to New York to do an intensive summer course with her beloved voice teacher, Dorothy Stone at the "Campo Doro Vocal Institute". Here she learned many more tips about her own singing, but also how to conduct private voice lessons and run her own studio. She is not ashamed to say that she has much more learning to do, and believes that music is a "practice" where one must continue their own education to be the best they can be; as such she has high hopes of getting her Kodaly Certificate through the University of Houston in the near future.

On a performing level, Cathy's desires lead her to New York City where she studied Musical Theatre at the highly acclaimed American Musical and Dramatic Academy. She performed in many musicals, operas, plays, and film in New York, California, Ohio, Texas, Frankfurt, and Sydney Australia. Some of her favorite leading and supporting roles include, but are not limited to: "Mother" in Amahl and the Night Visitors, "Feste" in Twelfth Night, "Lucy" in the original recording of 2076, (musical by Lisa Ralia Heffter), "Lily" Lackomoney in True Blue and Trusted (a melodrama), "Susanna" in Le Nozze di Figaro (scenes), "Zerlina" in Don Giovanni (scenes), "Barbarina" in Le Nozze di Figaro, "Vera" in Ten Little Indians, and "Maria" in West Side Story. She was a member of the MEAA, the professional union for actors in Australia. After having children, she moved back to America, where she was offered AEA (Actors Equity Association) membership.

Having experience on the education spectrum also makes Cathy a good choice for your child. She has a vast amount of early child care experience, as well as musical experience with children of all ages, including, but not limited to: teaching private voice, and directing the choir for the cast of Amahl and the Night Visitors at the Riverina Conservatorium of Music, in Wagga Wagga Australia while she also played the leading role of "Mother" in the same production. She has conducted children's and teens choirs through community centers and churches using her Kodaly skills acquired through her education with Mark A Williams. Cathy has also directed, choreographed, done costuming, and worked back stage in many productions and children's summer arts camps. She also assisted in running a children's summer fine arts camp many years ago, where Cathy learned from the best, her own mother Mary Ann Hill-Williams, who's an art teacher, drama teacher, actress, and director.  

Cathy is now a stay home, home schooling mother who has been training her own children, each of whom has started their musical education "in the womb",  just as she was taught. Each child, including her 20 month old baby, sings in tune and has a fantastic sense of rhythmic timing! She swears by the Kodaly approach of teaching music and is thrilled to bring it to West Houston in her own home studio.

24 hours

A poem for my Dad who passed away on April 6, 2013
written by Cathy Dietsch
April 5, 2014

In 24 hours
one year ago.
In 24 hours
Had I just known.

Fly away, fly away
Fly away, back to you.
I would have just gone.
To see all this through.

To be by your side
holding your hand.
In 24 hours, I would just stand.

Stand up with you and give you a hug.
Just one more dance, one more embrace.
That sparkle in your eye, a kiss on the face.

In 24 hours I'd be sitting with you.
We may have told stories, until the night was through.

Perhaps, however, you could not talk.
Like your mother.

motionless
cold hospital bed.

In 24 hours, however, I did not fly to you.
But instead.
I had no idea, no warning.
No clue.

I complained.
"I have so much to do".
I was sore. I was tired.
My pregnant belly, the pain in my ear.

in 24 hours, I'd shed many tears.

One week and one half, you had many laughs.
75 years!
A party, just for you!
Had I known, I would have been there,
enjoying a cupcake. One. OK, maybe two.

Lungs...
   falling
      breath
Heart...
   pump
      pump
       
No more.

In 24 hours, *I* would have been the one at your door.

You always said you would never retire.
For the love of music, you just couldn't expire.

Teach. Compose. Teach. Compose. Teach. Teach. Teach.
Teach some more.

Just who was that, WHO knocked at your door?

In 24 hours, I'd try to be strong.
My Daddy. No answer.
Where is he?

There must be something wrong.

Getting ready for work.
That is how you wanted it.
You didn't want to be
Lifeless, in a cold hospital bed.
 -just like your poor mother, you always said.

In 24 hours, I lost you for good.
A full day of lessons, just as you should.
After that knock on your door.
Where is he?

Nevermore.

The lessons. They're cancelled.
Your children forlorn.
For what seems like forever, now do I mourn.

But there's hope. Yes. There's hope.
I am part of you.
I see you in my brothers, my daughters, my son.

When I look in the mirror, I have it too.
Your eyes, your heart, your passion for good.
Your grandchildren, all part of you too.

My mother. Your wife. The memories there.
Your music. YOUR music. It is everywhere.

I know where you are now.
In heaven above.
Sharing your gifts
with the ones that you love.

So as you conduct that heavenly choir.
Think of us, igniting your fire.

Though you had to leave us behind.
With each other, we all will be fine.

In 24 hours, there's hope in my heart.
There's a passion within me,
from end to the start.

So as I begin this day anew.
Always remember
I love you.

In 24 hours, I'll sing again

morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning to you

My daddy, my friend.

Happy birthday!

It is March 22nd. A typical day. The kids are upstairs, playing away.
But I am down here, baby asleep. Thinking of you, my father to keep.
I love you and miss you, my dear faithful Dad.
Happy birthday to you, I'll try not to be sad.

As I sit here listening to the songs that you wrote.
I try to sing, but there's a "frog in my throat".
Now is the time to "Listen, listen, listen to the children".
But instead I hear silence.

A calm in the house.
Not even a "Creep" from a wee little mouse.

So, instead I write, but my words will not flow.
I love you Dad, is all that I know.

So, happy birthday to you. Even though you will never grow old.
In a perfect place, with a new body, but your same gentle soul.
I'll see you again, in heaven above.
Keep singing, keep singing, my Daddy. My love.

Funeral Videos

I have been busy with my Dad's 8th grandchild who was born just five weeks ago, so I am very sorry I have not updated this blog in a while. I am very blessed and Nathan and I named our daughter after my Dad's mother. He would have loved this sweet baby, as he loved us.

Here is a link to the short version of my Dad's Hong Kong funeral, thank you to TCTANG Image House for the beautiful video. I am working on putting together a video of the funeral held in San Antonio.

http://vimeo.com/65078234



Blessings,
Cathy