Submitted Photo Miranda Fenner has grown up with music playing a predominant part in her life. From choir to orchestra and beyond, she has spent years in the field and is now working as a music teacher to help students experience the musical world of Minot.

The Minot Symphony Orchestra has been a big part of some people’s lives in the Minot community. Music is a language well understood all around the world and the symphony takes it very seriously to offer an experience that is memorable and, through their pre-concert talks and concerts for area fourth and fifth graders, educational.

Music touches the lives of many people and for Miranda Fenner, music and the Minot Symphony Orchestra inspired her down her musical career path.

Fenner first began her love of music elementary school. She started as a singer in the Western Plains Children’s Choir in elementary school and began to learn the cello in fourth grade. It was during fifth grade that she attended the Minot Symphony Orchestra’s educational concerts and really fell in love with all that music has to offer.

“I remember when I got to see the symphony perform when I was in grade school and I told myself that one day I wanted to be on stage like that,” Fenner recalled.

She immersed herself in music, taking so many music classes throughout her high school career that she would take summer school classes to fit everything in while taking the required classes to graduate.

Everything she did, Fenner explained, gave her so many amazing experiences from travelling to perform to meeting her dream of performing on stage with the Minot Symphony Orchestra. Through it all, she has gotten the opportunity to perform and meet many different people.

It was during her senior year of high school that Fenner made the decision to become a music teacher and work to give younger generations a chance at the musical opportunities she was having.

“When I thought about all the teachers I’d had, it was music teachers that influenced me the most,” she said.

She attended Minot State University where she got to continue her involvement with the symphony through a symphony class. After graduation, Fenner began her job as an elementary music teacher at Bishop Ryan Catholic School.

Becoming a teacher has now given her the opportunity to not only take on a new role in the music community of Minot but to also help give students a chance to experience the things she did in elementary school. This includes taking them to the very educational concerts that really inspired her as a kid.

“It’s really cool to get to experience all the different roles with the symphony,” she said. “I got to see them in elementary school, then perform with them, and now I’m getting to take my students to these concerts.”

Along with taking her students to the educational concerts and being a music teacher, Fenner has also worked to start an orchestra program at her school.

“It currently has 45 students who are being taught one hour after school four days a week,” Fenner said.

Fenner is also the music director at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church.

(Prairie Profile is a weekly feature profiling interesting people in our region. We welcome suggestions from our readers. Call Editor Mike Sasser at 857-1959 or Regional Editor Eloise Ogden at 857-1944. Either can be reached at 1-800-735-3229. You also can send email

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minotdailynews.com.)