By Logan Goralski
Grand Rapids Community College recently held the 2024 Student Leadership Award Ceremony to acknowledge the many students who go above and beyond around campus. This year the Distinguished Music Student Leadership Award was given to 20-year-old guitar major, Malachi Giese of Grand Rapids.
“This award is designed to recognize students with distinguished service or achievement that demonstrably benefits the music department at Grand Rapids Community College. Such distinguished service should be a pattern of exemplary service over the student’s years at Grand Rapids Community College, and exceed the normal duties of any positions he or she may hold, as in, above and beyond the call of duty,” said Professor Dobreff, the Music Department Head and Program Director.
Giese was one of four nominees for this award and said none of the things he did to achieve the award were for that purpose. Although his efforts were unintentional, he said it felt good to be acknowledged for his work.
Giese grew up surrounded by music, his mother a pianist and vocalist, father a trumpeter who played in the President’s Own Band, sister who’s also a vocalist, and a brother who played vibraphone in jazz bands and was awarded the Central Michigan University Jazz Festival’s Top Soloist award one year.
“I don’t really feel much pressure because they all think that I’m just a better player than them and that I know more than them,” Giese said when asked if he felt pressure from his family, “They also just don’t in general because that’s how the family is, they’re incredibly chill and supportive, all of them.”
Although his mom had him play piano intermittently throughout his life, his first musical endeavor was playing the oboe starting in middle school. He played this all the way through high school when he decided to pick up the guitar his senior year after some musical “soul searching” as he put it.
Something that helped him make this decision was the fact that he enjoyed practicing the instrument, which he had never really felt before when playing the oboe.
“Up until then I despised practicing, then I started playing the guitar and I enjoyed doing that. I liked practicing, I was looking forward to playing the instrument,” Giese said.
Giese also enjoys composing, he uses little bits and pieces of songs that inspire him and creates his own pieces or adds his own twist to existing ones. Outside of music and school, he likes to crochet, sew, play video games and ride bikes and skateboards.
Next fall Giese will be transferring to Grand Valley State University to pursue music performance, and he might minor in composition as well. In the future he would also like to pursue being a guitar teacher, using this opportunity to expand his own knowledge of the instrument as well.
By the end of his interview with The Collegiate, Giese managed to redirect the spotlight to the GRCC music department.
“Well, I kind of just want to talk about how wonderful the music department is,” Giese said, “The music department here is fantastic. For colleges they have a certificate program basically, to authenticate colleges for being a good school of music… We are the only community college in the entire state to be accredited for that and one of the only ones in the surrounding states.”
