Music theater teacher ignites singing spark in his students

Feb 24, 2015
3 min read

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. – Adam Gustafson, music theatre professor at Penn State Harrisburg, stood behind his piano with his arms folded tightly against his green corduroy blazer jacket, exhaled heavily, and said “I was not always a singer, but I am living proof that anything you put your mind to is very much possible.”

Gustafson did not come from a musical family. His mother was a lunch lady at a middle school and his father worked as an illustrator and photographer for the Vietnam War.

“My family was exceptionally poor,” Gustafson said. “You had poor people and then you had my family.”

Gustafson said his mother would bring scraps of food home from work to feed his family. Not only that, but his father ended up leaving his mother and staying in Germany after the war was over. His mother was left to take care of him, his siblings and a host of other family members.

“I was determined to get out of the predicament I was in,” Gustafson said. “He appreciated everything my mother did for him but it just wasn’t enough he said.”

Originally, he was an American studies major, but changed to music and said it was the best decision he had ever made because music ultimately became his career.

He found a love for singing when he started college. He was pressured by other classmates to try out for the choral choir at his college in Jacksonville, Ill. It was a small liberal arts college and there were only three people in his music class. Two of them could sing, but he could not. “Everybody was doing it, so I started doing it. It was the thing of the time,” Gustafson said.

One of Gustafson’s music instructors insisted that everyone was capable of singing. During the time he spent in choir he developed a singing voice. “Singing is, first of all, one of the most democratic forms of art making. You don’t need any instrument, any money, you just do it,” Gustafson said. He also made an oath to himself that when he became a music teacher he would help anybody that had the passion to sing.

There was not always positive feedback for Gustafson during his rise to success. At a point in his life, before he learned how to sing, family, friends and even music professors said that he should stick to American studies. But Gustafson said he was determined to prove them wrong.

Former choir student Lauren McManus had a lot of positive things to say about Gustafson. “Adam makes you try new things you would not usually do. For me, it was singing. I knew I could carry a tune but I did not know I could blow like that,” McManus said. “He saw something in me and wanted to bring it out.”

Gustafson said he tries to inspire his students to be better and to try and learn new things, no matter whether or not they thought they were capable of it.

Gustafson wants his students to stay away from the attitude that they have to be born with some type of musical ability. He said that sends him to a place he does not want to be. He wants his students to feel good about singing or trying to sing. “Adam has this way of making you feel that you are important and that nothing is impossible,” McManus said.

“I am in a comfortable spot in my life right now. I am happy,” Gustafson said. His mission is not yet done, but he said if he were to die today he would be pleased with what he has accomplished in life so far.