Kiefer Slaton’s grandfather was a “guitar man.” His father worked the Memphis music recording scene for a few years before becoming a surveyor.  Kiefer, a 17-year-old senior at Vicksburg High School, plays six instruments, serenades audiences ranging from Baptist church congregations to coffee-house crowds and says that he can’t remember a time when music was not a part of his life.

The origins of Grace Claire Cordes’ talent as a soprano vocalist are more difficult to identify.  The Warren Central High junior’s parents claim not to be able to carry a tune. And Grace Claire, 17, says that she decided to concentrate on voice lessons only after the discovery that she had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis foreclosed pursuits such as dance and soccer when she was in sixth grade.

The different paths that the Vicksburg students have trekked to musical aptitude crossed earlier this month in Oxford, where Kiefer and Grace Claire were singled out for two of the top honors bestowed upon students at the Mississippi Music Teachers Association’s annual state recital.

Kiefer, the son of Kimble and Susan Slaton, was recognized as one of six State Outstanding Students of the Year, an award reserved for pupils who have become eligible to participate in the state recital in seven prior years by virtue of superior performances in local auditions.  The students must have competed in solo piano performance for at least five of the years.

Grace Claire, the daughter of Dale and Lyn Cordes, was honored as the top eleventh-grade vocalist in the state and presented with a gold medal after MMTA judges heard her sing “O Del Mio Dulce Ardor,” a piece from a Gluck opera, and a recital piece called “When I Have Sung My Songs.”

A third recital award recipient with Vicksburg ties was Elizabeth Benson of Brandon, who took top honors among 12th-grade pianists and was recognized, along with Kiefer Slaton, as a State Outstanding Student of the Year.  Elizabeth lived in the area for eight years with her parents, Rob and Melissa, before the family moved to the Jackson area to be closer to Rob Benson’s business.  Elizabeth still commutes to Vicksburg for lessons with her piano teacher, Judith Allen.

A 17-year-old home-schooler who plans to attend Asbury College in Wilmore, Ky., in the fall, Elizabeth said that her family had thought about finding a new instructor after moving to Brandon.  “But I started out with Mrs. Allen, and Mrs. Allen was too good to leave,” she said.

Kiefer, who has taken piano lessons from Susan Gambrell since he was 8, and Grace Claire, a student of voice teacher Jeanne Evans for the past three years, offered similarly glowing reviews of their tutors, as well as other local instructors who help musically inclined young people develop their vocal and instrumental talents.

“We have so many great kids willing to work hard, and so many great music teachers within the school district,” Grace Claire said, citing Nancy Robertson, who heads up Warren Central’s choral department, Emily Rich, a WC music teacher who works with the department as an accompanist, and Jennifer Tillotson, who performed the same role at the high school before moving to Bovina Elementary as a music teacher this school year.  “Every one of them pushed me so hard to make the most of whatever talent I have.”

“Vicksburg and Warren County have a lot of students who are good musicians because Vicksburg and Warren County have a lot of people, adults, who care about music,” said Kiefer.  “It may be because the Mississippi River has always been a highway of musical culture.  Whatever the reason, it’s certainly noticeable.”

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It was Ruby Reagan, a choral instructor at Warren Central Intermediate School, who first noticed Grace Claire’s potential, Grace Claire said.  “I was in fifth grade, and she heard me sing ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee,’” Grace Claire recalled.  “Afterward, she pulled me aside and said, ‘I tell you what.  We’re going to let you try out for the sixth-grade play.’” 

Count that audition as the first in a series of successful ones that have helped land Grace Claire lead roles in Warren Central productions of “Beauty and the Beast” and “The King and I,” membership in the school’s Total Sound and Madrigal choirs and the right to compete as Miss Midsouth Outstanding Teen in Miss Mississippi’s Outstanding Teen Pageant, a feeder contest for the Miss Mississippi Pageant that is scheduled to be held June 11-13 at Vicksburg Municipal Auditorium.

Her entry in the pageant’s talent division  —  she will sing an aria from a Puccini opera called “O Mio Babbino Caro” — is suited to her strength as a classically trained soprano.   

Her pageant platform — nicknamed CHAT, for “Children Have Arthritis, Too” — reflects her bout with an ailment often assumed to afflict only the elderly.  Grace Claire was diagnosed with its juvenile form after complaining of unusual soreness after sixth-grade dance and soccer practices.

“At first, it was awful,” she remembered.  “It meant no more soccer and no more dance, nothing that required a lot of physical activity.”

The search for lower-impact recreation turned to voice lessons, eventually from Evans, Grace Claire’s current tutor. Three years later, Evans said, her student has developed into the best she has had in 25 years of private instruction.

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Family photos suggest that Kiefer Slaton developed an ease with musical instruments not long after learning to walk.

“I have pictures of Kiefer playing a keyboard with the stand as low as it can go,” Kimble Slaton said of his son.  “He eats and breathes music.”

His formal piano training began under Susan Gambrell when he was eight years old.  The relationship between tutor and pupil has been unusually dynamic since shortly after the pair sat down in front of the ivories, Gambrell said. Then Bowmar Baptist Church’s creative worship director, Gambrell had worked with Kimble Slaton, a member of the congregation’s praise band, and said that she expected his son to be at ease with music—but not a composer in his own right. 

“I would give him a piece of music to practice,” Gambrell said, “and Kiefer would come back to me having written another part to it.  It was absolutely amazing.”  Today, she says that young audiences regularly tell her that “they’ve never seen recitals as exciting as the ones Kiefer puts on.  He has a God-given talent.  It’s something that you can’t teach.”

She added that her student’s sterling academic record — a National Merit Finalist, he won STAR Student honors for the highest ACT score among Vicksburg High School students and plans to major in chemical engineering at Mississippi State University —  provides support for the popular theory that developing musical acumen reinforces skills required for success in math and science. 

“He’s a brilliant guy,” she said.

Kiefer, who will participate in his final high-school piano recital with Gambrell’s other students this afternoon at 2 in Bowmar’s sanctuary, has expanded his instrumental arsenal since his pre-teen days to include—in decreasing order of aptitude—the guitar, trumpet, bass guitar, drums and mandolin.     

The Highway 61 coffeehouse on Washington Street has provided a venue for his performances.  He’s a member of the praise band at Bowmar and helps lead youth worship services at the church.  Next month, he’s slated to be the principal male entertainer in the same pageant in which Grace Claire Cordes will be vying for a crown.

And he said that he won’t abandon dreams of a career in music when he begins pursuing a chemical engineering degree at State.  Kiefer plans to minor in music and perhaps work on Broadway in New York next summer.

“I want to try a career in music,” he said, “before I even knock on Dow Chemical’s door.”

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Contact Ben Bryant at bbryant@vicksburgpost.com