Phinally!

Since my last post, I have switched to BA. I have over 150 credit hours to my name at USM, and I am not going to stay on another full year to take 2 classes. Nope, not happening. I am now BA in Voice and Piano (piano minor actually, but still the same nonetheless) and I WILL GRADUATE IN MAY! YES!!!!

For the last few days, I've been trying to decide what direction I want to go in with my career. I want to teach, yet I still want to remain an active performer. A friend of mine at the NEC said it is impossible to be an academic and a performer; otherwise, i would kill myself doing both. I disagree completely with the first part, but this combination, though unusual, is indeed possible. Look at the musicologist at Rutgers, Julianne Baird. She has a BA, MA, and PhD all in Musicology, and yet she is a world-renowned soprano in early music. Before I found out her credentials, I thought she had performance degrees. She performs all over the world, and still teaches music theory, history, and conducts ensembles at her place of employment. This is what I want to do!! She is a performing academic, and an academic performer! Of course, I would need training from a teacher specialized in early music to do what she does.

Early music is definitely my calling. My parents and professor in Wales, Dr. Katherine Morris, helped to spark that interest. Dad is a big fan of Gregorian Chant, and when I was small, he frequently played it over the house's speakers. Dr. Morris introduced me to liturgical drama, specifically the Danielis Ludus (Play of Daniel) from Beauvais Cathedral. This opened up a new world to me. I felt like I was finally coming home. Participating in choirs over in Wales opened my eyes to sacred polyphony.
I've seen early music to be defined as music from the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods, and I am leaning towards the Renaissance-though I do have great respect for all three.
Dr. Fuller, Dr. Leventhal, and Flan all think I have the potential to make it in the field of the early music performance, but Dr. Fuller also gave me a sound piece of advice.
"What do you see yourself doing in ten years?" This scratches the DM at Indiana in Early Music. He said to not specialize too far so that you are unemployable. A PhD in Musicology means you are able to teach general music history, advanced music history of different periods, possibly music theory (Depending on training), and in my case: counterpoint, piano, Baroque recorder, and hopefully if i get the training, performance practices for voice. If musicology committees saw a DM Early music, or even a PhD Early Music, in a stack with other PhD Musicology applications, the Early music ones would be immediately discarded. I can see their point, but why would Indiana (they are apparently a smart school) offer a degree that is not employable in the real world? After I get all of my musicology degrees, I would be interested in the MM or the DM in Early music just to get the training. Training in that field is invaluable to me, because it is so rare to find.

Plans for the weekend include the first two performances of Carillon's winter tour at FUMC Clinton and Raymond Road Baptist in Jackson. Woot!