CVPA Spotlight Series: Lanie Niide

By Jen Kulju ('04M)

Lanie Niide got started in music at the age of five, taking piano lessons while growing up on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. Eight years later, Niide’s family moved from the town of Kapa’a to Stephens City, Virginia, where Niide took a break from music for a year before signing up for the marching band as a freshman in high school. “I realized how much I missed playing and how much I loved and connected to music,” shares Niide, who went on to become one of the two top pianists in the state as a junior in the All-Virginia Jazz Band. Over the years, Niide has developed a fascination with the piano and “all the other instruments used to make a nice, full sound.” That fascination—and desire to manipulate different instruments to create that sound—led Niide to composing.

Niide is now a freshman composition major at JMU studying piano with Dr. Lori Piitz. Niide, who enjoys playing the music of Rachmaninoff and Chopin, is a “fine and sensitive pianist,” reveals Dr. Piitz. Niide appreciates the “good constructive criticism” that Dr. Piitz gives with regards to piano work, posture, and hand structure. “I had always heard about the great music program at JMU and chose it because I love the community. I became friends with a whole bunch of College of Visual and Performing Arts students over quarantine,” says Niide, who received three scholarships to study music at Madison. Niide is the recipient of a Lisanby Scholarship, School of Music Scholarship, and the John S. Hilliard Scholarship. “The scholarships were a big factor in why I decided to come to JMU,” adds Niide.