From university classrooms and middle school orchestras to music programs for young children, Florida State University College of Music alumni are using music to teach, connect and serve communities across Miami.
A new short documentary from the College of Music highlights three alumni and the different ways their FSU experiences have shaped their work in South Florida.
“Our alumni in Miami are outstanding examples of helping others to make meaningful music in their community,” said Todd Queen, dean of the FSU College of Music. “They’re using music to educate, connect and strengthen communities across Miami. That spirit of service and engagement is central to what we teach at Florida State and to the future of our college.”
Etienne Charles, a native of Trinidad and Tobago and a 2006 graduate of the FSU College of Music, is a professor of studio music and jazz at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.
Charles said his time at FSU helped shape his belief in music’s ability to connect people.
“I am firmly of the belief that you should take your music to the people,” Charles said. “Music builds bridges literally. That’s what music does. That’s what we do every time we play.”
For Charles, Miami’s mix of cultures also connects to lessons he learned as a student in Tallahassee.
“Music brings people together who would not have been coming together for any other reason,” he said. “And I see that as a power, and it’s a power that I learned in Tallahassee.”
That belief in music’s impact also guides Vivian Ventura, an FSU College of Music alumna and orchestra director at Southwood Middle School. Ventura, who attended FSU for both her undergraduate and graduate studies in music education, was named Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ 2026 Teacher of the Year.
Ventura credits her graduate studies at FSU with changing how she thought about herself as an educator.
“FSU prepared me for Teacher of the Year through my master’s degree studies,” Ventura said. “They enhanced my overall understanding of how to improve the way I think of myself as a teacher.”
She also sees music education as a way for students to develop skills they can use throughout their lives.
“There’s so many life skills they learn in music,” Ventura said. “They learn how to get along. They learn to communicate. They learn to listen. They learn to think about what they are doing. When you apply those skills, you can do anything.”
For Portia Dunkley, an FSU College of Music alumna and founder and CEO of Teeny Violini, that impact begins with young children.
Teeny Violini is a mobile music education program for early learners and students through fifth grade. Dunkley said she was inspired to create the program by a desire to expand access to music education in her community.
“Teeny Violini was inspired really by my love for reaching back and wanting to create opportunities for students in my community that didn’t really have access to high-quality music education,” Dunkley said.
Dunkley said her experience at FSU provided a foundation for the work she is doing today.
“My experience at Florida State not only shaped, you know, the person that I am in my career, but also gave me an educational foundation that I’m really, really proud of,” she said.
Dunkley also expressed enthusiasm about the College of Music’s direction in community music. The college has launched a bachelor’s degree in community music, designed to connect musical study with community engagement.
“I am so excited that community music is the direction that the College of Music is going in,” Dunkley said. “I love the way that it has the ability to be flexible and to grow and expand into something that could really set the bar for so many other schools and programs across the nation.”
Through their work in higher education, public schools and community music, Charles, Ventura and Dunkley show how lessons learned at FSU are being carried into communities hundreds of miles from Tallahassee.
As Charles put it: “Music brings people together.”