Music To My Ears

As I might have mentioned in a previous blog post before, I have been involved in music at PLU for the last two and a half years. In fact, music has played an important role throughout most of my life. I started taking piano lessons when I was 4, and have continued to take some type of music lessons. 17 years later, I'm so happy that PLU has helped me keep music a big part of life even though I am not a music major or minor.

Let me tell you about my involvement in music at PLU. First of all, to fulfill my requirement of receiving a music scholarship, I am required to take lessons and play in an ensemble. Lessons really help me develop my skills as an individual, while playing in the PLU Concert Band really allows me to play in a big group. Meanwhile, I also play in a saxophone quartet, and this is mainly for fun! I love playing in this small group and it's a lot of fun playing different types of music and experimenting with those.


PLU saxophone studio (taken by Erik Steigner)

Students who take music lessons are also required to participate in a studio class. This year, we had a very large studio class of 17 saxophone players! Our saxophone studio class plays in two concerts during the year. The first one in the Fall semester is the woodwind recital, usually in the beginning of December. The second one is a joint concert with the University of Puget Sound (another university in Tacoma) saxophone players, which is always a lot of fun! We take turns hosting the concert, and this year it is at PLU so you should come if you are in the area! Concert Band also has one concert per semester, and musicians work hard to prepare for this.

Unfortunately, since I will be busy doing research and working on my senior Capstone project, I will not be participating as much in music next semester. I'm really thankful for the opportunity that PLU has given me to continue playing music even through college, and I encouraging you to support the musicians at PLU whenever you get the chance to do so, because I personally think we have great instructors and musicians at PLU!

Enjoy the holiday season, and I will be back again in January!

With love,
Loana