Musicians Celeste and Ken Booker create music and inspire the music in others.
Our Mission
Our mission is to serve all people in their musical endeavors. We teach and perform music of many styles and try to give those around us musical gifts of learning and experience.
Biographies
kenneth Booker
Ken Booker is an Instrumental Music Director, educator, and performer. He served as Director of Instrumental Music at Lee College in Baytown, Texas. He grew up in Nederland, Texas, where he benefited from and was encouraged by a great band program. He decided to make music his career, so he enrolled at nearby Lamar University, in Beaumont.
Ken’s graduate work at the University of Houston earned him a Masters Degree in 1989. The next year, he was accepted at the University of Texas. He completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition.
He served for nine years as Director of Instrumental Music at the Awty International School in Houston, Texas. In 2007, he began working as the Director of Instrumental Music at Lee College, in Baytown, Texas. At Lee, he directs a jazz group and teaches saxophone, composition, theory and literature.
Ken has very diverse musical interests when it comes to his writing. He has composed music for voice, piano, chamber groups, concert band and orchestra. Highlights from his life as a composer have been performances of two pieces at the University of the Yucatan in Merida, Mexico, and the premier of his Second Symphony by the Baytown Symphony Orchestra. In 2017, he presented a concert of pieces for big band with the Thursday Night Band at Lee College. In recent years, he has written music for jazz big band and for his rock band, Phthalo Blue. He currently has published pieces in the catalogs of Avalon Press and Print Music Source.
Celeste Booker
Celeste Booker is Music Director at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Cypress, Texas and teaches Piano, Voice and Guitar privately at Awty International School and at the church. She began her musical career at the age of 9, singing in the Youth Choir at Trinity Episcopal Church, Galveston under the direction of Paul Bentley. In her 8th grade year, Celeste began attending her parents' church, Westminster Presbyterian Church in Galveston, and by the age of 15 was their Organist and remained so with a couple of short breaks, until the age of 26 when she went back to college. She also began teaching at the age of 15 through the studio of Lenora Dorian Jones.
In 1989, Celeste received her Bachelor of Music Degree in Vocal Performance with minors in Piano and Theory/Composition from the University of Houston, but only after being a Math Major. She studied piano under Lenora Dorian Jones, Carolyn Adams - Galveston Junior College, Dr. Betty Mallard - University of Texas at Austin, and Dr. Robert Brownlee - University of Houston. At the University of Houston Celeste was accompanist for many vocal studios and vicariously learned from all of the voice faculty. Her formal vocal training began with Maureen Patton at Galveston Junior College and continued with Jean Preston Lack at University of Houston, winning 1st place at the Houston Area NATS competition 3 years in a row. She continued her vocal studies with Leonard Johnson at University of Texas at Austin.
Celeste has served as Music Director for St. Patrick's Catholic Church, Galveston; St. Peter's Catholic Church, Galveston; St. Leo the Great Catholic Parish in Houston and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Wimberley, Texas.
Besides being a professional musician, performing in the Yucatan as well as all around Texas with the Austin Chamber Ensemble, Celeste has been an accountant, restauranteur and property/apartment manager.
In Celeste's spare time she creates art of all kinds and is an avid birdwatcher.