Meek makes her mark on Leelanau
By Everett Howell on Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Martha Meek, a Suttons Bay resident, owner of Martha Meek Music Studio, and brilliant musician, finds joy in instructing the counties youth, voicing that, “it is an honor to be apart of their lives, even passed music.”
Martha had just received an invitation to a former students wedding, showing the lasting impression and importance she has on the Leelanau youth and adults alike.
Martha moved to Suttons Bay in 2017 but has “visited here her whole life.” She said the decision was easy, as she has family and friends scattered around the area, from Cadillac, Kingsley, Honor, Petoskey, and Traverse City.
“The family background was the main reason we knew this area was so beautiful,” she said. “This has always been like a home for me,” Martha said, along with expressing that she “would be landing up here somewhere.”
Martha had been giving private music lessons since well before living in Leelanau, but has really found success and fulfillment with the youth up here.
As owner of Martha Meek Music Studio, she has been giving private lessons to students of any age, full time since the late 1990s.
“As my role as a private music instructor, I am definitely in the lives of an awful lot of kids,” Martha said. “ You make an impression on everyone that you meet and you want to make sure that the impression that you make is a positive one.”
Recently, Martha’s students had recitals, one with 14 students that each selected a song or two to perform for the others and their families, and the other with four adult students doing the same. Martha said that her drive to teach and fulfillment is the students.
“I work to bring out the best in every single student,” she said adding, “That job is more than just teaching music, I become a part of the child’s village. It is an Old African proverb, it takes a village to raise a child. Being a part of that ‘village’ is an honor.”