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Where are they now …
Students who were involved in the Music Department—majors and non-majors alike—are invited to send in greetings, updates and memories.
What are you up to now? Whatever your path, we’d like to hear about your musical and non-musical activities since graduation. Please limit your response to 200 words. (We prefer to post your response unedited, in the first person.)
Please send to pohlb@beloit.edu or fill out our form
Hanna Brown ’10
I was a music major with a focus in music history. I also collaborated with peers and the Music Club throughout our years at Beloit to organize multimedia, innovative music projects and performances for the student body.
I am currently a professional musician and non-profit founder. I spent a few years after graduation in various fields and cities, but began to make my way back to performing in 2015 while living in Denver. I’ve since moved to Fort Collins where I collaborate regularly with other musicians in a growing music city. Because of my passion for music history as well as music therapy, I began to use music to connect with seniors and elders living in nursing homes and senior care facilities across Colorado. I’m drawn to forging life models for musicians who want to experience multiple ways of having a career in music - recording, performing, traveling, but also digging into the rich history of their art, helping people, and learning the stories of music listeners over time. This is why I recently began a non-profit called Sound Affects that brings professional musicians into senior care facilities for performances, artist residencies, and personalized music projects. One special project under the Sound Affects initiative is a podcast called Long Time Listener which features interviews with elders who discuss their musical (as well as non-musical) biographies. I believe that community is created when music and stories become shared experiences.
www.soundaffectsmusic.org www.hannadoreen.com
Celeste Baldassare ’09
At Beloit, I lived in the Music house for 3 semesters (S’06-S’07), majored in music focusing on bassoon performance, and participated in at least 3 ensembles a semester. I interned for the BJSO and occasionally subbed for them. I was a Marjorie Brown Leff scholar, recipient of the Andy Boggs Music Award, and received a study abroad enhancement grant to study traditional Chinese music and take lessons on a double reed instrument, the guanzi.
For the first few years after college, I worked in a couple different roles with adult learners in basic literacy, English language learning, and GED or citizenship test prep.
Currently living in Milwaukee. In 2012, I was hired by the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music to manage their professional and student concert series, helping to put on over 200 performances each year. Since 2014, I have worked for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, first as executive assistant & board liaison and more recently as campaign manager. In my current role at the MSO, I work with our executive director and senior director of advancement to manage a $139 million capital campaign for Milwaukee’s new Symphony Center.
I have continued to play bassoon both in large community ensembles and the occasional chamber group, but my favorite pastime is playing with my dogs Abi and Dottie.
Matt Prosser ’14
I took a handful of music classes, mostly pertaining to musicology/music history. I also recorded/released my own solo music, as well as performed many shows at C-Haus.
I am currently living in Los Angeles, where I am writing and recording pop songs. Some of the material goes towards my own artist project (Pross), while the rest gets picked up by other singers or simply sits on a hard drive until further notice.
www.soundcloud.com/officialpross
Samuel Hertz ’10
I currently live in Berlin, Germany working as a composer producing solo work, as well as collaborating with international dance and contemporary performance companies. Recent performances of my work have taken place at venues such as: The National Science + Media Museum (UK), the Macerata Opera Festival (IT), Opera North (UK), Inkonst (SE), and Fylkingen (SE) among others. As a collaborator with dance and performance, my work has been shown at festivals and venues such as ImPulsTanz (AT), Tanzplatform Deutschland 20202 (DE), Sophiensaele (DE), Gessnerallee (CH), and Charleroi Danses (BE). My compositional work is supplemented by interdisciplinary research in the fields of Sound Studies, Environmental Studies, and Geography; having produced six essays on sound and environment, I currently work on a large-scale research project on Anthropocene Studies with a number of public research institutions as well as with the visual artist Tomás Saraceno. My current projects include ‘Librations’—alongside collaborator Carmelo Pampillonio—a transmission-arts project involving collaborations with five international radio telescope transmitters to reflect sound off of the Moon; and ‘DOOM’, a research-cum-durational-doom-metal-performance with choreographer Layton Lachman commencing through a collaboration with neuroscientists at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics.