Courses
In The Studio
Term
Modality
Instructor(s)
Audition Prep Ages 12-14
![Sophia Franzella in a grey shirt with short brown hair.](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2024-06/FranzellaSophia2023Headshot%202.png?itok=LVq5iDje)
Sophia Franzella
Sophia Franzella is a teaching artist and professional actor working in the Seattle area. After 11 years of classical ballet training, she decided to transition into the world of Theatre at the age of 14. After falling in love with Theatre in high school, Sophia earned her BFA in Theatre Arts from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas in 2013. She is also a 2014 graduate of A Working Group (a Meisner-technique acting program). Sophia has taught acting and dance throughout Seattle over the past 10 years (Lakeside Middle School, Village Theatre KIDSTAGE, Sing Out Seattle, STG, Mode Music, Coyote, 5th Avenue Theatre, Seattle Rep, Taproot Theatre). Sophia also offers private lessons for audition preparation! When she is not teaching, Sophia works as a professional actor in Seattle. She is a co-founder and company member of the theatre lab Filament: A Collab Lab for which she often choreographs and directs. She is also a Pony World Theatre company member. Sophia also enjoys hiking with friends, reading, watching spooky movies, and learning new subjects!
Cornish+ Choir (Sunday)
![Emilia Kister standing in front of a microphone in black striped dress.](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-10/biophoto%20%281%29.jpg?itok=guvIOh81)
Emilia Kister
Emilia Kister began singing in a children’s choir and learning piano at the age of four, in Moscow, Russia where she studied at the Gnessin Specialized Musical School for Gifted Children. At the age of ten, her family immigrated to the United States and Emilia continued studying piano at the Kaufman Music Center in NYC. During High School, she sang in the school Choir, an a cappella group and fell in love with chamber music. For college, Emilia attended the Eastman School of Music to pursue a degree in piano performance, while there, she sang in the Eastman Chorale and continued to make music with others through accompanying and chamber music. During her third year of studies, Emilia switched from piano performance to music education, and hasn’t looked back since!
Mandolin Skill Development
![Matt Sircely playing a black mandolin with a blue button down shirt.](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2024-06/Matt-Sircely-7.jpg?itok=XGEUllkn)
Matt Sircely
Matt Sircely is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist living in Port Townsend. He has provided adjunct mandolin instruction at Cornish also teaching annually at workshops and classes over the years in places like Washington, Idaho, British Colombia and Louisiana, and the Mandolin Symposium in California. Over the years, Matt has introduced hundreds of mandolin students to their first swing tunes on mandolin. A founding member of the string swing ensemble Hot Club Sandwich, Matt appears on the most recent Hot Club Sandwich album alongside mandolin master David Grisman on half of the tracks.
As an instrumentalist, Matt Sircely has performed extensively in a breadth of stylistic contexts such as folk, blues, Tejano roots music, klezmer and other Jewish music, country bands and bluegrass outfits, everything from the old-time square dance community to the Seattle jazz scene. His musical interests extend to the many folk styles from around the world. Most recently, he has been cultivating a deep passion for fiddle tunes related to his ancestral roots in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
In 2008, Sircely co-founded a roots fusion band with a Cornish student at the time, the late great Joseph Mascorella on drums and vocals. Together, they worked for years striving to reach new heights in composition and improvisation. Matt has also performed in duo format with many artists, including songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Danny Barnes, who also produced his first album of all original songs. Sircely and Barnes also released an album recorded live in California which included several of Matt’s own songs.
As a music writer on assignment for the Fretboard Journal and other music magazines, Sircely has researched and written articles about legendary artists including Andy Statman, Wade Mainer, Juan Reynoso, Radim Zenkl, Hamilton de Holanda, Lee Stripling, Calvin Vollrath, Buell Neidlinger, Danny Barnes, and the founding of the David Grisman Quintet.
At his home on the Olympic Peninsula, Matt Sircely is always writing songs and producing new recordings. He enjoys spending time in his vegetable garden and programming the music lineups at his local farmers markets.
American Roots Ensemble
![Matt Sircely playing a black mandolin with a blue button down shirt.](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2024-06/Matt-Sircely-7.jpg?itok=XGEUllkn)
Matt Sircely
Matt Sircely is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist living in Port Townsend. He has provided adjunct mandolin instruction at Cornish also teaching annually at workshops and classes over the years in places like Washington, Idaho, British Colombia and Louisiana, and the Mandolin Symposium in California. Over the years, Matt has introduced hundreds of mandolin students to their first swing tunes on mandolin. A founding member of the string swing ensemble Hot Club Sandwich, Matt appears on the most recent Hot Club Sandwich album alongside mandolin master David Grisman on half of the tracks.
As an instrumentalist, Matt Sircely has performed extensively in a breadth of stylistic contexts such as folk, blues, Tejano roots music, klezmer and other Jewish music, country bands and bluegrass outfits, everything from the old-time square dance community to the Seattle jazz scene. His musical interests extend to the many folk styles from around the world. Most recently, he has been cultivating a deep passion for fiddle tunes related to his ancestral roots in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
In 2008, Sircely co-founded a roots fusion band with a Cornish student at the time, the late great Joseph Mascorella on drums and vocals. Together, they worked for years striving to reach new heights in composition and improvisation. Matt has also performed in duo format with many artists, including songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Danny Barnes, who also produced his first album of all original songs. Sircely and Barnes also released an album recorded live in California which included several of Matt’s own songs.
As a music writer on assignment for the Fretboard Journal and other music magazines, Sircely has researched and written articles about legendary artists including Andy Statman, Wade Mainer, Juan Reynoso, Radim Zenkl, Hamilton de Holanda, Lee Stripling, Calvin Vollrath, Buell Neidlinger, Danny Barnes, and the founding of the David Grisman Quintet.
At his home on the Olympic Peninsula, Matt Sircely is always writing songs and producing new recordings. He enjoys spending time in his vegetable garden and programming the music lineups at his local farmers markets.
Acting for Stage & Screen
![Headshot of Meg McLynn](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-06/M_MCLYNN_2x.jpg?itok=gf9eOmgM)
Meg McLynn
Meg McLynn is an actor, vocalist, and teaching artist who has been seen on stages and screens throughout North America. Meg loves to share her passion for performance with students of all ages, and it is her belief that the work we do in “the studio” is applicable to all aspects of our everyday lives.
Having studied for 7 years under renowned voice teacher, Kristin Linklater, Meg now works with students to help them take ownership of their wonderfully unique voices. She teaches Voice and Speech at Cornish College of the Arts, and she serves as a vocal coach with Jack Straw Studios. She has assisted with voice training at Columbia Business School and World Leaders Forum in New York City. Meg also teaches Voice and Acting classes at Freehold Theatre Lab and Mighty Tripod Studios in Seattle.
Meg is a member of the Seattle-based vocal trio, Blue Plate Special, and has been an Anthem Singer for the Seattle Seahawks. As a concert soloist, she performed the songbooks of Patsy Cline, Judy Garland, and Carly Simon with Purple Phoenix Productions. Local acting credits include roles with Seattle Shakespeare Company, Book-It Rep, Seattle Symphony, ArtsWest, Seattle Opera, Seattle Public Theatre, Washington Ensemble Theatre, Theatre22, Harlequin Productions, and 14/48: TWQTF, as well as the feature films “Different Drummers”, “7 Minutes”, and “Colton”. You can see her in the series, “The Girl in the Woods” streaming on NBC/Peacock.
Practical Music Theory for Musicians
Music Composition for Strings
Music Composition for Brass
Songwriters Workshop
Wooden Box Design & Build
Planters for Patios
Screendance
Improvisational Practices
![Headshot of Alia Swersky](/sites/default/files/styles/max_1600w/public/2023-06/A_SWERSKY_2x.jpg?itok=rnH_tYiC)
Alia Swersky
Alia Swersky is a movement artist, performer and educator deeply engaged in dance improvisation, durational time-based art, film, site-specific work, and environmental installation. She is an artist and an educator with degrees from Cornish College of the Arts and an MFA in dance from the University of Washington.
Her artistic path over the last two decades has been shaped by this yearning for deep and meaningful connections with people and places. As a co-creator, ritual maker, and a “horizontal” director, Alia seeks to touch others through dance, somatic presence, vulnerability, and fierceness. Her work ranges from full audience participation to intimate acts of One-to-One performances, site-specific dances for film and live performance, as well as durational time-based art that includes physical acts of endurance, repetition, stillness, subtlety, singing, soft energetic grace, abstraction, caricature, and a deconstruction of clichés such as extreme high femme expressions. Her teaching and art-making seek to create practices that embrace endurance on stage and in life as acts of resistance, resilience, release, and beauty.
As a performer, Alia has also toured nationally and internationally as a member of the LeGendre Performance Group and has performed in the works with many Seattle artists, some of which include The Maureen Whiting Company, Khambatta Dance Company, Jurg Koch, KT Niehoff, and Salt Horse.
As an educator, she has taught at Cornish College of the Arts for sixteen years and in the Seattle community at Velocity’s Strictly Seattle Festival, and the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation (SFDI). She was a long time Co-artistic director of Dance Art Group (DAG), a non-profit organization that promotes the practice and appreciation of dance and somatic education in the Seattle area, including the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation.