The Magnificent Seven

by Jim Hale

It's an understatement to say that Prof. John "Buzz" Jones is happy with the first eight students in the Sunderman Conservatory of Music's new Bachelor of Music program, which focuses on performance. "When you recruit an exceptional group like this," he said of this past fall's inaugural class, "it really elevates the quality of musicianship for everyone.

"What I like most is the wide variety of experiences they bring to Gettysburg," continued Jones, who was named director of the Conservatory this past June. The students' hometowns range from Milwaukee, Wisc., to Tijuana, Mexico, and their skills range from soprano to oboe, but -- as indicated in the profiles presented here -- they are united in talent, tenacity, and a desire to balance rigorous musical training with a wide-ranging liberal arts education. "The faculty and Admissions Office have worked hard to develop that unique niche," Jones said. "Conservatories usually focus on solo playing, but we chose to focus on chamber ensembles, which are inherently collaborative. It's all about students and faculty working together, thinking and breathing together, and making music."

"We hope to have 30 students on scholarships majoring in the new B. Mus. program by 2010," Jones said. "They'll join the B.A. in Music and B.S. in Music Education students as leaders, but non-majors will still be vitally important. We have well over 200 students in 11 different groups, but only about 65 are music majors or minors. There are superb musicians majoring in programs like biology, creative writing, and physics."

Still, Jones said, the concept of a conservatory can't help but raise the music program's profile. Auditions by prospective students jumped from 65 to 90 last year, and more than 100 are expected this year. "By 2009-10, we should have over 80 music majors, including more B.A. and B.S. students," Jones said, "and our ensembles will benefit from having additional majors."

The Conservatory began in 2005 thanks to a nearly $16-million legacy from Dr. F. William Sunderman Jr. '19. (See profile at the end of this story.) His gift created many opportunities, such as the hiring of two new tenure-track professors, Paul Austerlitz in ethnomusicology and Kathleen Sasnett as coordinator of voice. (Thanks to another generous alum, Andrew Parker '79, two students will accompany Sasnett this summer as she performs with an opera company in Europe. The students, Elizabeth Patterson and Rebecca Brandow, will sing in the opera's chorus.)

But the creation of the Conservatory also provides challenges. "The practice rooms are overflowing with dedicated students," Jones said, once again understating the case. "Schmucker is open 24-7, but we still have 110 private lessons a week and only 10 practice rooms - and the choirs, bands, and orchestra have been rehearsing in Paul Recital Hall since 1999. The Majestic Theater has become an outstanding performance venue, but our classroom space, faculty teaching studios, practice rooms, and lack of a large-ensemble rehearsal hall are a major concern."

Hope is on the horizon, however. "Our needs largely depend on a domino effect," Jones said, referring to plans for a new day-care center on campus, which will free additional space for the Department of Visual Arts in the West Building, which in turn will permit Schmucker's remodeling and expansion for sole use of the Conservatory. "We're competing for the best music students in the country, and we're competing with well established schools that have state-of-the-art facilities. The timetable for renovating Schmucker will definitely affect our growth and recruitment," Jones said. "We need these dominoes to fall very soon."

Alumni and others can now join Friends of the Conservatory to help support the renovations and additional scholarships. For information, contact Jones at jjones@gettysburg.edu or 717-337-6131.

Rebecca Brandow
Music and more
It makes perfect sense that Rebecca Brandow's favorite aria is "Laurie's Song" from The Tender Land by Aaron Copland. "It's about moving on from high school to the world," explained the soprano from West Chester, Pa.

Brandow's transition began during her junior year in high school, when her chorus teacher suggested private voice lessons. She took his advice, and only a few months later found herself auditioning for the Conservatory. "I was very intimidated," she said. "Everybody else has been practicing since they were three years old."

But Brandow is far from a newcomer to music. She has played violin since third grade, sung in choirs since fourth grade, and performed in school and community theater musicals since she was eight or nine. So it's no surprise that Brandow's busy first semester at Gettysburg included a role in The Secret Garden, a musical that was the first student production in the restored Majestic Theater. She also sang in the Women's Choir and World Music Ensemble.

Brandow hopes for a career in opera, but she also looks beyond music. She opted against other conservatories whose programs lacked a liberal arts context. "I wanted a more well-rounded experience," she said. "I was considering digital filmmaking before I went into voice, and I really enjoy writing short stories." Brandow plans to explore those opportunities at Gettysburg - and to play some intramural softball too.

Emilio Cuenca
Beyond borders
In addition to the universal language of music, Emilio Cuenca speaks French, Spanish, and English. The latter were musts for his daily commute to high school in San Diego, Calif., from his home in Tijuana, Mexico. Cuenca - a pianist who toured internationally with the Mexican National Youth Orchestra - also has some Italian, thanks to two summers as a student at the Orvieto Festival of Strings about an hour north of Rome. And German may be in his future: he hopes to take part in the College's study-abroad music program in Salzburg, Austria.

The possibility of combining broad horizons with exacting conservatory training is precisely what brought Cuenca to Gettysburg, where he was studying philosophy and biology during his first semester, along with a music theory and performance courses - plus two to six hours of practice every day.

Cuenca knew he wanted to play piano at age four, and started at age eight. "It's my passion," he said, but where it came from is a mystery. "There's no music in my background, except that my dad and grandfather like classical music, but it's coming out in my generation. My brother started playing cello a year ago, and my cousin has been playing violin since I started on piano. Maybe now we could be a musical family."

Andrew Deen
In tune with history
Whether he's interpreting an 18th-century baroque composition on his oboe or wearing his reenactor's uniform while trilling a Civil War tune on his fife, history and music are Andrew Deen's twin passions, which made Gettysburg a perfect fit.

"I came here partly for the Civil War minor," said Deen, whose Eagle Scout project was restoring a 19th-century naval cannon at a museum in Tampa, Fla. But he also set his sights on music during his first semester. As well as spending hours each day practicing and carving his own oboe reeds, he played in seven different ensembles, ranging from a trio with guitar and mezzo-soprano to the pit orchestra for a musical at the Majestic.

He also joined the Marching Band. Keeping in step was no huge challenge - he was the field director of his high school band in Atlanta, Ga. - but he kept things interesting by giving the saxophone a try. And that wasn't the only new instrument. "I have a brand-new fascination with bluegrass, and I've been messing around a lot on banjo," said Deen, who also had his eye on an oboe-like instrument owned by the Conservatory. "The English horn looks pretty interesting."

Music and Gettysburg both run in Deen's blood. His dad is Mark Deen '82, a trombonist who majored in music and went on to serve as a music minister at a number of churches. "I've definitely got some musical genes," Andrew Deen said.

Kassandra Flamouropoulos
Writing stories and music
Kassandra Flamouropoulos sang at Carnegie Hall -- twice -- with her award-winning high school choir, but said she found it "more satisfying" to perform at nursing homes, elementary schools, and other places in her own community.

This past fall, she joined the Gettysburg musical community in a big way, not only singing in the Camerata, College Choir, and World Music Ensemble, but also playing in the Flute Quintet, Wind Ensemble, and Marching Band.

Flamouropoulos took up the flute in third or fourth grade. "I always had my head in the clouds," she said. "I was into magic and fantasy stories. I guess the flute resonated with the thought of fairies playing on pan-pipes or whatever." Since then, her interests have become more firmly grounded in this world. "I guess it's a little surprising in a performance program where other kids listen to Mozart and Mahler for fun, but any sort of world music really grabs my attention. I think African music is really cool, and I listen to Irish, Native American, and Greek music. To get my Irish fix, I wrote an arrangement for two voices and flute of a tune called �Down by the Sally Garden.'" She also composed an original piece, "An Old Friend," based on an Elizabethan sonnet that she wrote. "I've always enjoyed writing," she said. "I've been writing poetry since seventh grade and stories since fifth grade."

Flamouropoulos, of Andover, N.J., isn't certain of her career plans, but graduate school is one option: "I'd like to find a way to combine music and writing. Studying ethnomusicology would tie them together."

Robert Hudson
Channeling Liszt
Robert Hudson's imagination is fired by the highly emotional piano works of 19th-century genius Franz Liszt, but after working with inner-city kids this past summer, Hudson's focus is on the future, not the past.

As a volunteer with Milwaukee's Walnut Way Conservation Corps, Hudson not only tutored kids academically and labored beside them in a community garden, but also played music for them. "One of my dreams is to bring Romantic classical music to a broader audience, especially young people," Hudson said. "So much contemporary popular music is vulgar and hateful, and it affects people's aspirations. When some friends and I gave recitals for the kids this summer, it put my theories about what Romantic music can do to the test. The kids could not get enough of it. It's not what they hear on TV, and it was astounding to them. They wanted to hear it again. They wanted recordings. They wanted to learn the instruments. It actually affected their lives. It was absolutely overwhelming."

Hudson -- who completed a grueling "boot camp" for budding virtuosos at the Universitaet Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria -- sees the wide-ranging liberal arts education that he will receive at Gettysburg as a means of deepening the emotional range of his playing and, along with the Conservatory's tough regimen, preparing him to compose and perform powerful music that will reignite Liszt's Romantic spirit in the 21st century. "If a performer doesn't put his heart into it, music is dead," Hudson said. "You have to give it your soul. That's what pushes it over the edge."

Elizabeth Patterson
Finding her own voice
Elizabeth Patterson seemed destined to play the accordion like her dad, her mother, and her brother. But a different talent revealed itself instead.

"When I was a little kid, my dad (Robert Patterson) would play the accordion and I would run over and sing," she said. "At first it was lots of Disney and pop stuff, but as I grew I started singing old standards with him and Broadway songs, and now classical. I sing everything with him." It's fitting that her favorite aria, from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, is "O Mio Babbino Caro" -- "Oh, My Dear Daddy."

Her mom has been an equally large influence. Neurologist Terry Patterson is a founder of the ALS Hope Foundation in Philadelphia. Elizabeth has long volunteered with the organization, which works toward a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease. In April, she plans to sing at a benefit for the foundation along with the Accordion Pops Orchestra.

After an attempt at the violin -- her sister's instrument -- Patterson began voice lessons at age 10. Countless performances followed, ranging from school musicals to professional gigs with her father. Gradually, her voice matured into the lyric mezzo-soprano instrument that she contributed to the Women's and Concert choirs, the World Music Ensemble, and this past fall's student musical at the Majestic, The Secret Garden.

But what about the accordion? Patterson's not even tempted. "My dream," she said, "is to sing in operas."

Katherine Rodda
Born to play
Brass is in Katherine Rodda's blood. Her family background is full of trumpeters, including cousins, uncles, and a grandfather who played professionally in dance bands.

But this past fall, she wasn't playing trumpet in the College Community Orchestra, Jazz Ensemble, Wind Ensemble, Marching Band, and pit orchestra for a musical at the Majestic. Instead, she played trombone, her favorite instrument since she started it in fourth grade.

Of course, she does know how to play the trumpet too, along with piano, clarinet, "and a very little bit of alto sax." And just as she plays a wide variety of instruments, Rodda loves a wide variety of music. "I listen to everything," she said. "I pride myself on having the largest i-Tunes library of all my friends." When it comes to performing, she likes jazz best. "It kind of keeps on hitting you till the song is over. Classical hits you when you least expect it - usually when I play, because I have a loud instrument."

Rodda has a wide range of interests, too. "That's basically the reason I came to Gettysburg," she said. In other conservatory programs she looked into, "you're not really going to have a life outside the music department. But besides music, I love engineering and science. At Gettysburg, you get a great musical education, but you get a great education in general behind it. I might minor in science. If performing doesn't work out, maybe I'll go into acoustical engineering."

Emily Romanello
Keeping her balance
Emily Romanello is not only a talented flautist, but also an Irish step dancer who has competed nationally. The two skills came together in an unexpected place this fall: the Bullets Marching Band. She hadn't marched before, "but once I got the drill down, it turned out to be a cool experience. I guess the dancing helps me remember where I'm supposed to be." She also played in the Wind Ensemble, Flute Quartet, and a trio of flute, clarinet, and voice -- and kept her feet in shape with the Dance Ensemble.

Romanello has played flute since fourth grade, when she asked her orthodontist what instrument would work best with her braces. Given two choices, she picked flute over clarinet. But she hasn't always turned down other instruments. She plays piccolo, played violin briefly, was in a percussion ensemble in middle school, and started piano at age 3. The latter makes sense: her mother, Donna Romanello, is a piano teacher. "My mom has taught for basically my whole life. I heard piano every day," she said. "Piano's a good foundation. I haven't practiced in a long time, but it was really helpful in learning theory, and I can always pick it back up."

She found a similarly strong educational foundation in Gettysburg's dual focus on music and the liberal arts. She may double-major in music performance and business management, maintaining a dancer's balance between them. "I hope I could combine the two and work in fine arts administration but keep playing too," she said. "I kind of like straddling two worlds."

Dr. Sunderman's legacy

In 2003 Gettysburg College received the largest gift in its history, a $16-million bequest from Dr. F. William Sunderman '19, including his important collections of antique violin bows and historic musical scores.

During the 104 years prior to his death in March, 2003, Sunderman played his Stradivarius violin at Carnegie Hall, developed an antidote for nickel carbonyl poisoning while working on the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb, and invented instruments for measuring serum electrolytes. In 1999, he was recognized as the nation's oldest worker: since 1965, he had directed the Institute for Clinical Science at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. He taught at eight universities, traveled to 175 countries as a lecturer, and authored 350 papers and 45 books.

Sunderman was an honorary life trustee of the College, which granted him an honorary doctor of science degree (1952), the Distinguished Alumnus Award (1963), and the Alumni Meritorious Service Award (1979). He established the Sunderman Foundation for Chamber Music in 1983 and the Henry M. Scharf Memorial Lecture on Current Affairs in 1977.

For more about his life and a photo gallery, visit www.gettysburg.edu. Click on Library; then on More Events, Exhibits and News; then on More Exhibits; and then, under "Online Exhibits," on A Gift of Music.