Alma Matters: The First Academy's alumna now guitar instructor, performer

When The First Academy alumna Caitlin Caggiano was 5 years old, she received from her parents perhaps the most important Christmas gift of her life — a Spanish silent guitar.

“I felt some spiritual calling at 5 years old that I had to do this,” she said. “Or else I wasn’t going to unlock all the other doors.” 

However, something happened to her guitar just a few days after she received it. 

“I found the guitar completely smashed in my closet,” she said. “To this day, I have no idea how it happened.” 

Six years after that, she received another guitar for Christmas. 

“I would play that guitar until my fingers bled,” she said. “It wasn’t just a passion; it was an obsession.” 

And although she was taking guitar lessons, she didn’t have opportunities to perform in front of an audience. At the time, TFA didn’t offer music classes besides band and choir. 

It wasn’t until she entered high school that she auditioned for the school’s chapel band. She played “Standard Lines” by Dashboard Confessional, an “intense acoustic guitar intro where you’re all across the neck of the guitar,” she said. 

“I played the song, and they said, ‘You realize you’re a really advanced level; we can’t even play that song,’” she said of her audition. “That’s the first time I felt validation.” 

God’s calling was loud and clear. 

She hasn’t put the guitar down since.

Today, through her online guitar school, she shares her passion with more than 350 students across the world. She also performs at the Guitar Shred Experience at Disney Springs, a guitar-led concert experience. 

From student to teacher 

Caggiano attended TFA from the third grade until graduation in 2009. 

Her experiences at TFA were nothing short of amazing, she said. 

The lessons she learned and the relationship she created with God was like no other. She credits that to Dr. Scott Toenges, her apologetics teacher. 

“He is a remarkable man, and he solidified so many things in my faith before I went to college,” she said. “He didn’t just teach how to further your walk with the Lord, but he helped you solidify it and understand how to defend it. It was remarkable, and I hope they still have that class.” 

In chapel band, she recalls the culture of excellence that was created. 

“There were five or six core players there, and because we were giving an offering and sacrifice to the Lord, we wanted it to be excellent,” she said. “TFA was the first time I was exposed to playing music with other musicians, and I thought it was the coolest thing.” 

She adored playing live with other musicians, and from then on, she knew this is exactly what she needed to be doing. 

Her experiences at TFA were instrumental to her success today. 

While TFA focused on academics and athletics more than music when she was a student; it ignited curiosity in her. 

“I honestly think I wouldn’t be the musician I am today if I had (TFA’s current music department),” she said. “I didn’t have any actual music theory knowledge, but I was so hungry for it.” 

When she graduated from TFA , she went to the University of Central Florida for business. She quickly realized that wasn’t what she wanted to do and moved to Nashville with her twin sister to attend Belmont University. 

They only attended one semester before making the decision to leave the school because of its cost. 

Caggiano’s sister then came back to Florida, but she stayed in Nashville and played with bands. 

“Pretty quickly, I realized I don’t want to be a mom in my 50s and still playing in clubs until 2 a.m.,” she said. “I wasn’t really living the life I want my kids to see me living.” 

So she moved back home. 

Discouraged from music, she decided to go to school for mathematics. 

Her father refused. 

“No you’re not,” he said to her. “You’re going to school to study the guitar. … You’re going to do this because this is the passion and inspiration God has put inside you. This is the gift that God has given you. You have to invest in it.” 

Those words were enough to inspire her to go to school for music. 

She attended UCF and graduated in 2017 with a degree in classical guitar — the first female to graduate from the university with that degree. 

“I had no life,” she said. “It was four-and-a-half years of completely sacrificing everything else to understand the instrument, and it was the most beautiful thing. It was eight to 10 hours a day of being locked in a room where it’s nothing but you, the guitar and God. I quickly realized when I do that, I’m not the artist and the guitar is not the instrument. God is the artist, I’m the instrument, and the guitar is just an extension of that.” 

When she graduated, she began instructing guitar courses in person, but then, COVID-19 hit. 

“I moved everything online, and it just completely blew up,” she said. “It’s truly amazing. I’m very grateful.” 

She started teaching through Zoom, and in three months, she was teaching 60 hours per week. 

She has students from England, France, Haiti, Australia and other parts of the world. And although she had no idea this is what she would do for the rest of her life, she is grateful for the path on which God put her. 

More important, she also teaches TFA students, some of whom are in chapel band now. 

To her, that is a true full-circle moment. 

“It’s such a cool thing,” Caggiano said. “It freaks me out sometimes, because I didn’t realize how much time had passed since I went to TFA, but it’s the coolest thing.” 

Playing for God 

At TFA, she learned to play for God. 

When she teaches Christian students, she makes sure to instill that mentaility into them — ensuring they become fluent in guitar so the Holy Spirit can come through. 

“If your fingers and your ears are completely fluent with the guitar fretboard and the Holy Spirit wants to say something, then you can allow Him to say something, because you know exactly where things need to go,” she said. 

Caggiano said she’s had multiple people come up to her during her performances over the last 15 years and say they physically saw Jesus next to her when she played. 

“Every note needs to be purposeful when I’m on stage, and it all started at TFA,” she said. 

When she’s teaching non-Christian students, her style of teaching remains the same. 

She teaches students how to play with excellence — no matter who it’s for, because that is what everyone should strive for. 

“If you want to do anything in the arts, you can have no ego with it,” she said. “If you truly want to be successful where you actually understand you’re fulfilling your purpose, you have to run toward God, and you have to pursue Him with everything that you are.”