Teen on track to win highest Girl Scout award by planning concert series to help orchestra

Abby Kent, a home-schooled 10th-grader, is set to receive the highest award a Girl Scout in her age group can earn: the Gold.

It's the award for which a Girl Scout wants to be remembered. It's the award that reveals a girl's passion, dedication to community and determination to make a difference.

And it's the culmination of a huge amount of effort.

Abby's passion is music. The 16-year-old Mount Pleasant resident studies piano with Charlene Yarborough, cello with Damian Kremer and harp with Judy McCoy. She is a member of the Hungry Monk Music Orchestra (a West Ashley youth orchestra), the ShamRocks and her own band The Celtic Lassies.

And she is among the many young musicians of the Lowcountry who value the contributions of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, now faltering because of financial woes. In March, the symphony temporarily ceased operations.

So perhaps you can guess what Abby Kent has done.

The senior Girl Scout with Troop 449 has organized a six-concert series called "Music Matters," to be hosted by Franke at Seaside, 1885 Rifle Range Road. The series is not a fundraiser. It's meant only to entertain and advocate for classical music in Charleston, she said.

"Given the nature of this advocacy project, where the organizer and all musician participants have pure motives to help the CSO, I have received tremendous outpouring of support from the 'former' members of the CSO," Abby wrote using her father Alex's e-mail account.

She has invited a slew of local musicians -- from the School of the Arts, Charleston Academy of Music and private studios -- to join her in the series, and to highlight the need for businesses in the area to step up their support of the symphony and other music organizations.

"As many as possible state-level award winners (and) elite student musicians are participating to show that we care that the CSO is reinstated," Abby said.

The first concert, scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday in Franke at Seaside's Rodenberg Hall, is called "Piano Passion" and will feature Abby and others playing solo works by Rachmaninoff, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Mozart, Sibelius and Gershwin.

The December concert will feature the ShamRocks. In January, the performance will include Beethoven's "Spring Sonata" and Bach's Double Concerto in D minor. Traditional Celtic music will be on offer in March.

All performances are free. Seating is on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Going for the gold has been a real growth experience for Abby, mother Terri Kent said. It's caused her not only to organize a big project and focus on a goal, but to open up and welcome a little more attention than she's used to getting.

"This is a really big deal for her," Terri Kent said.

Yarborough wasn't really surprised to learn of Abby's efforts.

"She's a wonderful student and very hard worker, extremely talented and very advanced for her age and very mature for her age as you can probably tell by this project," Yarborough said. "She constantly wins at the state levels and in pretty much everything I enter her in. During the summer, she practices like five or six hours a day."

Abby, whose two siblings also are musicians in training, said the project "feels like a grown-up full-time job."

"Thank goodness I am home-schooled to have more flexibility," she said. "It probably also explains why I play so many instruments."

So this is how Abby Kent will earn her Gold Award. She arrived at this point after completing seven steps, each of which include several tasks. Only at the end of the process does she work with an advisor, put together a comprehensive plan and seek approval from the Girl Scout Council.

Now what's left to do, according to Girl Scout guidelines, is make some music, evaluate what she has accomplished -- and celebrate.

Reach Adam Parker at 937-5902.