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Staff photo by Samantha Grier.
Nina Markle, the director of Middletown's Performing Arts Academy, gives a voice lesson to Lexiana Krause, 12, of Middletown, who is preparing for a Christmas Eve performance at her church and a youth concert in February.
She teaches a city to sing
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By Eric Robinette,
Staff Writer
8:50 PM Sunday, November 15, 2009
Editor’s note: This is part of a regular series on women of influence in Butler County.
For decades now, Nina Markle has been teaching Middletown to sing — because she feels she must.
The longtime music teacher for Middletown City Schools continues her work as an instructor and the director of the Middletown Performing Arts Academy, which offers performing arts classes to area residents.
“I think everybody’s born to sing. I guess it’s just my philosophy that everyone in Middletown should,” she said with a laugh.
Markle has been a singer - that was her original ambition. Nowadays, whatever she does, she considers herself a teacher first.
She said, “I used to be a performer - but as you age, you lose your edge. I can still sing, but I’m very critical of myself, so I don’t do it anymore,”
Except, of course, when she’s teaching others to sing. One of her students is Lexiana Krause, 12, of Middletown, who takes voice lessons from Markle. When Krause surprised Markle during a lesson, Markle told her, with characteristic good humor, “Where is Lexiana and what have you done with her?”
“As soon as she started the Middletown Performing Arts Academy, I signed up and ever since then it’s been wonderful. I wasn’t really good before then, I listened to some recent tapes and it’s a big difference,” she said.
Those kind of results are what keeps Markle going.
“I never, ever stopped (teaching) because I loved it,” she said.
Markle demands perfection from her students — but she does it in a nice way.
That’s what stands out about the teaching style of the director of the Middletown Performing Arts Academy, according to both her current and former students.
Whether she’s teaching a voice lesson or directing a play, Markle always does so with a sense of humor — and people say that helps.
When Lexiana Krause of Middletown was struggling with parts of a song during a voice lesson, Markle told her good-naturedly, “This is how it is in New York — get used to it.”
Krause said “She has a really cool sense of humor. She makes kids want to relate to her.”
Markle said, “The kids know I love them and they can take the criticism. It’s all about teamwork, I turn that work into fun.”
Dawn Cooke, another instructor at the Middletown Performing Arts Academy, said of Markle’s teaching, “She can do it with so much love and compassion, you feel like you’re doing something wonderful. She expects excellence, but she has a unique way of making anyone, no matter what their age, work to their best potential.
Markle, a native of Charleston, W.Va., came to Ohio in 1963 on the strength of the reputation of the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati.
“To me it was just a beacon of light for a singer,” Markle said.
Eventually, Markle got married, which shifted her ambitions to teaching instead of performing. She started out at New Miami Local Schools, taught for Franklin City Schools and then taught at Middletown City Schools from about 1972-94, when she retired.
Except she never actually stopped working. She served as a music director at University Baptist Church for several years. Then, in 2008, she started the Middletown Performing Arts Academy, wanting to give area residents a chance to have affordable arts instruction when schools were cutting back on their arts program for budgetary reasons.
Now the academy has 175 students, who not only take lessons but also show what they’ve learned in plays and other shows for the community.
“We are affordable and we’re in the back yard. You want the kids to have what you had,” Markle said.
William “Kip” Moore, a well-known actor and singer from Middletown, was one of Markle’s students when she worked for Middletown City Schools.
“Her whole guidance on the do’s and don’ts of acting — those were the instruments for me wanting to perform,” he said.
That’s why he’s glad Markle keeps going.
“A lot of people retire from what they do, and she’s still out there doing it,” Moore said.
No matter what she’s teaching her students, Markle said, “I want to leave them with the feeling that they have talent, that they can make a difference. Music can make a difference in their lives and cause them to have more hope. That future music teacher is out there. That future artist is out there.”
For more information on the academy, call (513) 594-7242.
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2836 or erobinette@coxohio.com.
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11:23 AM, 11/17/2009
12:24 AM, 11/17/2009
Keep up the good work Nina, May God Bless You and your Academy.
7:36 PM, 11/16/2009
Middletown Community Foundation never gives one cent to this organization.... I will never understand!
7:31 PM, 11/16/2009
5:53 PM, 11/16/2009