SEMJA Scholarship Winner Kyla Deboer
What a summer it was for Kyla Deboer. It started with an introduction to jazz singing at the 2025 Detroit Jazz Workshop. It culminated in a featured solo performance on the Waterfront Stage of the Detroit Jazz Festival. Central to this extraordinary success, Deboer was the recipient of SEMJA’s 2025 Lou Smith Scholarship Award.
As she explained in a recent interview, her vocal experiences during high school were limited to church-choir singing, with no solo performing at all. Seeking formal vocal training after graduation, she registered for the Detroit Jazz Workshop’s Vocal Summer Jazz Week, held at Music Hall Performing Arts Center under the direction of Scott Gwinnell. SEMJA’s scholarship fully subsidized her enrollment. Gwinnell was impressed with her talent and commitment, noting that she embraced the week’s jazz curriculum, enthusiastically taking notes, participating in activities, and making “jazz friends.”
Gwinnell encouraged Deboer to apply for the 2025 Detroit Jazz Festival Youth Vocal Competition. Based on her audition tape, she was selected to perform in the Competition Finals July 31 at the Dirty Dog Jazz Café and, wowing the judges, was named the Competition winner. That earned her a spotlight performance Saturday afternoon, August 31, at the 46th annual Detroit Jazz Festival, backed by the J.C. Heard JazzWeek All-Stars.
Deboer is majoring in psychology this fall at Oakland Community College, but made sure to add jazz classes to her schedule. She thanks SEMJA for helping pave the way to her new-found passion.
TOP: Scott Gwinnell presenting Kyla Deboer with SEMJA’s Lou Smith Scholarship Award
photograph by Jeff Dunn
ABOVE: Kyla Deboer performing at the 2025 Detroit Jazz Festival August 31