Graduation Speech, one year later

To start off, I want to acknowledge us as a community of music learners and teachers at the Aaron Copland School of Music. It is special that we are all gathered here together. Many of us graduates have family and close friends here-  those who have supported us through this degree but also for many years beforehand. We can feel the love and support from you! I also want to hold space for all of us here today to call to mind the music teachers who lit the fire in us- school teachers, private instructors, and any musical mentors who set us on our extraordinary paths. 

Graduation season has felt funny to me. I have people coming up to me and saying things like “How does it feel to be wrapping up your master’s degree.” In my mind, I’m thinking “Wrap it up?!’ Really? Shouldn’t I be opening it?” The truth is that one’s experience as a student cannot be neatly packed away in a box. Rather, it is a tangled web of impressions and memories that we will carry and that will carry us forward in whichever direction we choose. As we look back through these memories, we tend to connect the dots between big moments- concerts we played with our peers, recitals where other people got to celebrate our artistry with us, and difficult exams we passed. Many of these memories will be connected with others- because music is highly communal after all. 

But, music is also highly individual. Each one of us has a unique set of motivations and passions within the art form we share. So, I’d like us to look to that inner being and do this- reflect on the mundane -moments when you were practicing the same etude for the 2nd week and could barely stand the slow crawl of progress. Or maybe times when you were standing in the rain waiting for the bus after staying late in school for a rehearsal. Think of frustrating moments- I know I’ve had my fair share. When you had to fight harder than you should have to prove you are capable of something, or, maybe a lesson went badly and you could feel disappointment wafting from a teacher you admire. Now think of things that feel unresolved- maybe a theory concept you do not fully grasp yet despite weaseling through the exam, or a piece of music you still want to learn. 

Everything will keep moving- and I want to remind all of you graduates including myself that the connection between your life in school and your life outside of it is you, yourself. And you are a marvel. Continue to seek out and connect those dots I spoke of before- plan the next concert, sign up for that audition, plan that recital. Build community.

In doing all of that, however, do not forget the importance of this individual work in areas of the frustrating, mundane, and unresolved.

 I’m even going to go so far as to say that our collective capacity to use music as a tool for a better world is related directly to and dependent on our individual capacity to keep chipping away at things that are difficult for us- so we have to keep working.

There is good news. As students of music, we are extraordinarily well-versed in the persistence and consistency needed to surmount challenges. 

 I mean, anyone who saw a blueprint of our music building would note the numerous small practice rooms where we all spend so much time as quite unique and hilarious. Think of all of those glorious hours you spent in there! I am not saying that we all need to build a small closet space and lock ourselves there for three hours daily, but, I am saying that getting into that same frame of mind we are in when we are practicing – especially practicing difficult things is so, so important. 

It is the quality within us that works through mundane repetitions of things we know are important, confronts frustration, and keeps dreaming beyond what we can currently do – that quality is essential to the inner world of artists. Regardless if you are a first-year student or a dean, inside the institution or outside of it, we all need to find those in-between spaces- where there is tension, discomfort, a vision. Yes. those spaces. We as musicians/artists need to be there. We need to grow there. Most importantly need to hold each other there