By Lauren Turner
Four schools, many hours of undergrad education, and hundreds of unique experiences—this is the simplest way to summarize the life of Cherry Garasi, the director of the UMHB Arts Academy.
Garasi started her education at Converse University in South Carolina as a music performance major. Through different vocational changes, Garasi found herself at the University of South Carolina, Julliard, and eventually at Samford University.
“My parents met me in Birmingham, and Dr. [Claude] Ray met us on the steps of the music building. It was like a movie. He literally put his arms around me, and he and his faculty helped me finish school.” she said. “I finished my degree. With many, many, many, many, many undergraduate hours.”
Her degree is in piano performance, but she also has the equivalent of a music education degree and holds two minors in social science and English.
All of her educational experiences led Garasi to make professional connections with people across the music and Baptist worlds—one of her many jobs was at Warner Brothers Publishing. Her experience there opened her eyes to the world of legalities of music publishing, knowledge that would come in handy for her next position at Lillenas Publishing Company.
“One of the things that [Lillenas] had proposed was that we form some kind of relationship with VeggieTales … They had never allowed anyone to publish any of their music that they used on their shows or anything else,” she said. “I came up with the idea of doing a musical for children that used VeggieTales music and video images because it had never been done before.”
Her interactive musical included visuals from VeggieTales and live music. Garasi was acknowledged for her trailblazing work in 2014 when she received a Dove Award from the Gospel Music Association for one of her musicals, "God Made You Special." In conjunction with writer Pamela Vandewalker, the piece won Youth/Children’s Musical of the Year.
But the Dove Award was not the end for Garasi. A new door had opened.
“We were living in Boca Raton, where everyone wants to go and retire. We just thought this is it! My husband, Michael, got a call from the dean and from the search committee, who were looking for a director of bands here at UMHB,” she said. “We didn't even know who UMHB was. We didn't know anything about Central Texas.”
