Meet Mrs. Closz 🎵

Mrs. Closz is a twice certified National Board teacher and has been the orchestra director at Wren Middle School for the past seven years.  She also teaches 5th grade strings at Spearman Elementary School.  Mrs. Closz holds a Master's Degree in Music Education from the East Carolina University School of Music and is a cum laude graduate of the University of South Carolina School of Music where she obtained her Bachelor of Music Degree in 2000.  While at UofSC, Mrs. Closz helped to develop curricula for the USC String Project program and helped design the String Project insignia still used to this day.  She is a founding member of UofSC's Theta Chi Chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota (SAI).  She is a native of West Columbia, SC and graduated from Airport High School in Lexington District II.  

She has performed in various groups throughout the Southeast including the Fayetteville Symphony, the Carolina Philharmonic Orchestra near Pinehurst, NC, as well as the Wilmington Symphony in Wilmington, NC.  She has traveled the world as a performer, including visiting the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan where she performed with the Amman Symphony, held master classes at the King Hussein National Conservatory, and performed alongside the Jordanian National Army Band.  She had the privilege of performing at Carnegie Hall in New York City with the Carolina Philharmonic Orchestra where the orchestra debuted a piece by Eric Ewazen, faculty at the Juilliard School.  

Mrs. Closz has judged Solo and Ensemble and worked for the acclaimed South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities.  As a teacher for 13 years in Cumberland County (Fayetteville, NC), Mrs. Closz served as co-conductor of the Cumberland County Middle School Youth Orchestra, acted as a guest clinician for various honor ensembles while in NC, and served as the Lead Orchestra Clinician at Methodist University's Summer Jam Music Camp.  She also served on the Cumberland County Schools Arts Curriculum Team to help devise curricula and establish Essential Standards for the orchestra program.  As a member of the National Association for Music Education and American String Teacher's Association, she consistently takes her students to competitions and events where her students consistently receive high ratings.  She is in her 23rd year of teaching.  Apart from being a teacher, Mrs. Closz loves spending time with her family; husband Sean Closz, who is the music teacher at West Pelzer Elementary School and their three children, Rowyn, Declan, Rion, and their new dachschund Dash.