Young, gifted and not afraid of a long commute

In the days building up to the start of the school year, Lashanique Znya Mourning was looking forward to starting eighth grade — even though she has to wake at 4 a.m. to commute to class.

The Ft. Independence Houses resident wakes up so early because she attends the prestigious Mark Twain School for the Gifted and Talented, located all the way out in Coney Island. The school offers classes in “Talent Areas” in all sorts of subjects: math and computers, creative writing and athletics, to name a few. Znya (as she prefers, the “Z” is silent) was admitted to the school because of her extraordinary voice.

“It is worth it,” she said of the commute. “I really like it. I think I’ll be upset to leave it this year.”

It’s not all about the performing arts for Znya — her favorite traditional subject in school is math.

Znya lives with her great-grandmother, Sandra Green, at the public housing high-rise at 3340 Bailey Ave. Before attending Mark Twain, she went to the Milton Fein School (P.S. 7).

Znya, 13, said she started singing when she was 5. Back then, she did not know she was special. But adults took note of her talent, and by the time she was about 9, she was getting free voice lessons from the Bronx House School for Performing Arts and acting in musicals like “The Wizard of Oz” and “Annie.”

When she was looking for a middle school, she decided to audition for Mark Twain, a school with a proven record of helping its graduates get into the top public high schools in the city. Now she has vocal class four times a week at school and takes private singing lessons in Manhattan. Mark Twain’s Vocal Music Talent Area has helped Znya hone her skills, learning to read music and performing songs in Italian, French and German.

“I can sing anything but my most favorite is…” she trailed off, thinking. “Actually, I don’t know my what my favorite thing to sing is because I sing almost everything.”

Her favorite language to sing in?

“It has to be Italian,” she said. “The way that the melody goes and the way that the words drag together, it’s so beautiful.”

Sitting on a couch in an office room at the Ft. Independence Houses, Znya sang a verse from one of her favorite songs, “Summertime” from the musical “Porgy and Bess.”