As beloved orchestra teacher James Gross retired over the summer, there was left an empty spot that needed to be filled before the 2025-2026 school year. Montana Crawford, who grew up playing the violin at the age of three, was hired into the position a few months before the start of the school year.
Originally from Ontario, Canada, Crawford was placed into a Suzuki string school at a young age where she could expand on her knowledge of the violin all the way until she graduated high school. Currently in the process of getting her masters degree at the University of Michigan, Crawford saw the vacancy and immediately reached out to Gross for more information.
“I did a Google Search over the summer for teaching jobs out of curiosity and Grosse Pointe came up,” Crawford said. “I was like this is a really cool school district and I called James Gross up as soon as I saw the post.”
With the start of the year, this will be Crawford’s seventh year teaching. After getting her undergraduate degree at the University of Iowa, she got her first teaching position in small town Pella, Iowa, where she taught for three years. Following that, she moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan where she commuted to Monroe, Michigan to teach for another three years.
“I traveled from Ontario to Iowa for my degree in music education and violin performance,” Crawford said. “Once I graduated, I was teaching grade five through twelve in Iowa and then six through twelve in Monroe.”
As she takes on the new job, Crawford teaches concert and symphony orchestra at South and fifth, seventh and eighth grade at Brownell and Pierce. She notes that she will keep the same traditions that South has been accustomed to in order to keep things rolling.
“I’m in three buildings and my goal is to keep everything just running as it has been because Mr. Gross was so beloved and he did an incredible job with this program,” Crawford said.
As the first month of school has flown by, Crawford has been welcomed by all of the students in the music program here at South and to start the year off, the orchestras had their annual Pops and Pastries Concert in the gymnasium on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m..
“It has been awesome,” Crawford said. “The students have been so respectful and they have been awesome leaders with showing me how things have been done. I am in awe that I’ve landed in this position. I’m super excited.”
