The Skyline choir director Lindsay CieChanski (pronounced “see-chan-ski”) has been named the 2023 DTE Energy Foundation Educator of the Year by the University Musical Society (UMS). This award is given annually to an educator who encourages and supports an arts education at their school, per UMS.

“The award is granted to an arts educator in any of the arts, performing or visual, to a teacher who has made an impact on students,” said CieChanski. “Anyone can nominate a teacher for that award.”

Lindsay CieChanski, often called Ms. Cie (pronounced “see”) by her students, has been teaching for 21 years, 15 of which have been at Skyline High School. CieChanski has taught elementary music and middle school performing arts classes in the past, but her love is definitely choir. 

“I really love music,” said CieChanski, “and I think that just allowing my natural self to come through…allows me to connect to students. I love sharing my passion about the music. I get really excited about the repertoire that we’re studying and singing.”

The choir director’s enthusiasm for music is reflected in her teaching, creating a vibrant choir community at Skyline. 

“My favorite thing about Ms. Cie is how incredibly dedicated she is to improving the singing of everyone in the choir program,” says A Cappella choir student Andrew Chen (‘25). “She makes everyone feel welcome and helps them enjoy creating music together.”

CieChanski takes a flexible approach to music.

“I like to focus on making sure I’m not using the same teaching technique on everything that we’re doing,” says Ciechanski. “We try to mix it up as much as we can so that it’s interesting for me to teach and interesting for the students to learn. We don’t always do the same strategy on every new piece — we’ll mix it up between using formal sight reading methods or other folk and nontraditional methods.”

The choir’s enriching curriculum also allows students to gain a well-rounded education and participate in various out-of-school activities. 

“We…explore all kinds of genres of music and lots of different repertoire from different styles,” says Ciechanski. “We also do some other stuff outside of [concerts]; for example, Skyline Blues… is a pop a cappella group, and they compete in things like ICHSA [International Championship of High School A Cappella] and some invitationals. We also get invited to other kinds of choral festivals that have been on college campuses…. We have taken several international trips to Italy, Ireland, Austria, and Spain.”

Lindsay CieChanski was surprised with the award at a December 6 professional development meeting. 

“I felt very humbled,” said CieChanski.  “We were in a staff meeting and no one knew what was happening at the meeting and I had no idea what was coming at all. I was very surprised and very honored…. It reinforced the pride that I have in all of my students and all of the work they’ve done.”

Many of her students have expressed pride in their teacher, and celebrate her accomplishments.

“I thought about how much she does for our classes, for all our events, and for Skyline Blues, and I think she deserves [the award],” says Lex Zain (‘27), a choir student. “She definitely makes choir feel even more like a family than it is to begin with.”