The Performance of a Lifetime 

Music and Performance Specialist Leslie Larkin made music class a highlight of elementary school for 23 years. 

When Leslie Larkin was a student at the celebrated New York City high school from the movie “Fame,” she didn’t know that her most important audience would eventually be four- to eleven-year-olds. But for 23 years, she gave the performance of a lifetime as the music specialist at Epiphany School.  

“I just absolutely fell in love with teaching,” says Leslie, who worked as a professional flutist before taking a job at Epiphany School in 2000. “I never loved anything as much as I loved teaching music.”  

Inspired by Epiphany’s “culture of learning for their staff and faculty,” Leslie enrolled in a degree program focused on Arts Integration. Her studies inspired a new approach to music instruction at Epiphany School as she worked closely with classroom teachers to connect the music curriculum to grade-level units and integrate multiple art forms into her lessons.  

She took a student-centered approach to teaching, especially when helping each grade develop their annual performance. Even the youngest students got a voice in developing their grade’s show.   

“We used their artwork and got their buy-in on the songs and poems so that it came from them instead of being teacher-directed,” says Leslie. This sense of agency and engagement results in more meaningful learning. For example, in the 2022-23 school year, third graders studied the creative culture of Canada’s Indigenous Métis people. For their winter show, they not only performed Métis songs, dance, and stories on the stage, but also offered the audience interactive workshops, demonstrating weaving and teaching them how to sing and dance. Compared to a traditional recital, “it was an incredible whole-body, whole-brain learning experience,” Leslie says.    

Her colleagues relished the chance to collaborate with Leslie, whose infectious laughter, collaborative spirit, and positive outlook greatly enriched the school. She served on the admissions and scheduling committees and eagerly took on numerous leadership roles, including serving as a new employee mentor and co-leading Epiphany School’s NWAIS school accreditation process in 2022-23. For four years, she co-taught pre-k Music/Library classes with librarian Jen Wilkinson. “Leslie is brilliant at adjusting lessons to meet the needs of students, both in advance and in the moment,” reflects Jen. “Her enthusiasm is contagious and inspiring. Her ideas are endless. It is not an exaggeration when I say [working with Leslie] has been some of my best professional development as an educator.” 

Fourth-grade teacher David Bush, who worked with Leslie for 16 years, concurs. “Leslie is one of the most joyful, creative, student-centered, and caring teachers I have ever known. She works miracles with students and makes it look easy. She brings out of them something that makes the students look like musical geniuses. Leslie can take students without much experience and give them something musical to enjoy that will challenge them at their level and build up their confidence.” 

In 2022, Leslie’s son, Henry, enrolled at Bridges Academy, a school for twice-exceptional students. She was intrigued by the possibilities for applying her integrated learning approach in that environment. Leslie became a fourth-grade teacher at Bridges in 2023. But as she says, “I’ll only be six minutes away! Epiphany has been like a home, and I will miss seeing everyone every day. I will try hard to keep in touch.”