Q: So let me get this straight — you don’t want to be a lawyer?
A: Oh, no! In high school, I was really involved in student government and musical theater and the choir, and I thought I really wanted to be an attorney. My older sister is an attorney, and I really look up to her. Also my parents — I love my parents, they’ve always been supportive, but they didn’t really see music as a viable career. So I thought, okay, I’ll go to Vassar, I can do my pre-law thing, I can sing in the choir, it’s a gorgeous campus — I’m set. That was the mentality.
Q: So what happened?
A: They assigned me Christine Howlett, the director of choral activities, as my pre-major advisor — I guess because I put down that I wanted to be in the choir. I went to my first meeting with her, and I said, okay, this is the thing: I’m going to be an attorney, but I want to do some music. But I’m not majoring in music. I don’t really know why they made you my advisor because I’m here to do pre-law, so I just want to make sure that we understand that.
Just recently, she and I were talking about that first meeting. She said, you just came in, you meant business, and after you left, I called the chair of the Music Department and said, we’ve got a new music major!
And sure enough, second semester freshman year, I declared my music major, and Christine Howlett is now my major advisor, life mentor, and coach.
Q: So what happened freshman year to change your direction?
A: Voice was always my primary instrument, but classical music was new to me because the focus in my high school was jazz and musical theater. So I started taking voice lessons with Robert Osborne — Vassar is so lucky to have him, he’s incredible — and I started taking conducting lessons with Christine. She thought I had a lot of potential as a conductor, so she offered me the position of assistant conductor of the college choir. And not long after that, I got the opportunity to conduct the Camerata and also to assistant-conduct the Cappella Festiva community choir. So I got immersed in conducting, and I said, I’m going to be a conductor!
At the same time, my voice teacher kept pushing me. He said, you have a voice, you can do something with this. So he encouraged me to apply to SongFest, which is an intensive three-week performance workshop in Malibu, California, and I got in. And here’s where I saw the care of the Music Department. My parents are the best parents a person could have, but they were still a little hesitant about music, so when I said I needed $3,000 to go to California for three weeks, they were just like — singing? So the Music Department gave me some scholarship money, and then my parents jumped on board and financially supported the trip as well.
Q: Then you went to the Aspen Music Festival the following summer?
A: I applied and got into the opera program. And it was that experience, combined with everything that’s happened here, that made me decide that I am going to be an opera singer. And again, the Music Department stepped in and really, really helped financially. They bend over backwards for music majors — not just in the classroom, but in your personal life. For me, the decision to do opera and to become a singer was a difficult choice, and there was a week there where I was meeting with almost every professor in the department. And it wasn’t me asking to meet with them, it was them saying, come in, let’s talk. And they took the time to talk me through it and to tell me, you can do this, you can make a career of it, this is your passion, go for it.
And then, at Aspen, I was surrounded by people from the top conservatories — Curtis, Juilliard — and that was a little daunting. But one thing I realized is that in some ways I’m able to offer more at a festival like Aspen because of my liberal arts training. I can bring the knowledge that I get from a sociology class or a psychology class to a character that I’m singing. Take a Schubert art song, for example. What was the context? What was going on in the composer’s life? Study the language a little bit, study the culture. And I get all of that here at Vassar, but then I can just apply it all to what I love — music. It’s awesome.
Q: So what’s the next step?
A: I want to get my master’s and my doctorate. I want to have that performing career, but I also want to teach eventually. My parents have always taught me that if you dream it, you can do it. Vassar has helped to further that idea. I thank God for the talents he has given me, and I strive to be able to make my dreams a reality and bring glory to his name.
Q: Have you been involved in any extracurricular stuff?
A: I’m on the faculty at Renaissance Kids in Poughkeepsie, which is an after-school arts program that was started by Carol Padron. Teaching there has been an incredible experience. I teach acting and sight-singing, and I also give private voice lessons.
I also got very involved in Residential Life. I was vice president of my house sophomore year — Noyes, the best dorm on campus — and then the next year I was the house intern. And this year I’m the manager of South Commons. I oversee the nine South Commons units and do weekly rounds to make sure that everything is up to code. I love South Commons. I think it’s the best senior housing. You get your own little porch, you get a huge kitchen, and you feel like you actually have your own little home.
Q: What have you gotten at Vassar that you don’t think you’d have gotten elsewhere?
A: It’s just the care — that’s the thing that amazes me — the amount of time, across the board, that is given to individual students.
For example, I took my freshman writing course with Professor Simpson. At one point, we had to schedule individual appointments with him, and I had so much work to do and so many commitments. I said, I’m so sorry, but the only free time I have is at midnight on such and such a night. And he met me in the library at 11:30 at night.
Sophomore year, I was having some issues with a paper I was writing. I sent him an email, and even though I’m sure he was crazy busy with his own teaching schedule, and even though I wasn’t even in his class at that point, he met with me, read the paper, and helped me work through it. He took the time to do that. The faculty and the staff here genuinely care about you and what you’re trying to do.
Our Music Department here is a family. You walk into Skinner Hall — it’s a family. All the students talk to each other, we get along, it’s not competitive, we want each other to succeed. And we have some incredible faculty here, world renowned performers who have crazy schedules, but they’re there to help you. That is something I’m going to miss.
