Why Vanderbilt?
The things that make us truly unique, and why students choose to study here.
by Jeremy Wilson, Associate Professor of Trombone, Coordinator of the Brass & Percussion Area
Individual attention, within a supportive community.
Vanderbilt’s collegiate music program is undergraduate only. That means that we only offer Bachelor’s degrees in music, and there is no Master's or Doctoral program here. Why does that matter? It matters because it means that:
Our students get the faculty’s time and attention. With no grad students, the Blair brass faculty are able to focus our energies on teaching and guiding our small studios of undergrads. Translation: tons of individual attention and mentorship for every single student that attends here. My students see me multiple times per week, in lessons, in studio class, in chamber coaching, in ensemble sectionals, and more. And because we have relatively small studios, our faculty have time to give extra attention to those who need it. Going through an embouchure change? You’ll have the help and attention you need. Need me to listen to your recording for a Summer festival and give feedback? Sure, I have time to do that. It’s a level of individual care and attention that very few places can offer.
Our students don’t compete with graduate students for performance opportunities. Blair brass undergrads get ALL the collegiate performance opportunities we offer, because they’re the only collegiate students here! So you will never be auditioning for ensemble placements alongside a 25-year-old DMA student. From the moment you walk in as a first-year student, you’re performing in Wind Ensemble, Orchestra, and chamber groups. Not to mention things like the award-winning Blair Big Band (if jazz is your jam). When we have a famous guest artist come to campus, guess who plays in masterclasses for them or has a private lesson with them? That’s right. Undergrads.
Our students get unprecedented access to professional experiences and opportunities. At many schools, when a faculty member gets called for a gig that doesn’t fit into their calendar, they offer it to their grad assistant. But not here. We pass those on to our undergrad students. In just the last three years, most of which has been during a world-wide pandemic, Vanderbilt Brass students have done numerous studio sessions for big-budget films and video games, played at famous venues around town, and subbed with ensembles like the Nashville Symphony and the Ryan Middagh Jazz Orchestra. If you show us that you’re a solid player and a reliable mature person, it is very likely that you will get chances to play professionally in the thriving music scene of Nashville, even as an undergrad.
Your music classes will never be taught by a graduate assistant. When you walk into your music theory, musicianship, musicology, keyboard harmony, etc, you’ll be taught by a member of our elite Vanderbilt faculty.
Horn students in Nashville
Because we’re small (usually around 10 horns, 10 trumpets, 8 trombones, 5-6 tubas/euphoniums), and because everyone spends 4 years here, there is a really tight-knit community atmosphere. It doesn’t mean all the brass students are BFFs. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t. But it does mean that people form really close working relationships, develop important teamwork and communication skills, and learn how to function as fellow professionals and artists. It means that we have a culture where we push each other to higher heights, and compete and inspire each other to continually raise our game, but within a framework of mutual respect and support. The faculty are very serious about fostering a culture where we’re happy for each other to succeed, and we’re WITH and FOR each other no matter what. Our students hang out together. They go for meals, and have studio movie nights. They have impromptu jam sessions or sightread quartets in the courtyard. And we’re all better because of it.
High standards of excellence, but with a focus on health, humanity, and belonging.
You might have heard this already, but Vanderbilt is a really really good school. I know rankings aren’t everything, but they aren’t nothing, and VU is consistently ranked really highly in tons of categories. What that means for our brass students is that they get to do something really rare in life: they get to have the best of both worlds. Within the Blair School of Music, everything is small, intensely focused on being excellent and capable musicians, and all about individual attention… Kind of like a conservatory might feel. But we’re not a conservatory. Vanderbilt is an elite research university, poised to give every student of every major a world-class education, with a degree that packs a punch anywhere in the world.
What that means is that our students get an incredible music experience through the Blair School, but also have access to one of the great universities of the world. They train with some of the best musicians in the world at Blair, and then go learn from some of the best scientists, researchers, and scholars in the world when they take their required Liberal Arts Core classes. They get the perks of conservatory-esque music training, but also have the classic “college experience” within a large university. A huge percentage of our brass students use this to their advantage by choosing to double-major in something outside of music, which is something Vanderbilt makes very streamlined and doable in 4 years (for the vast majority of students). Just in the last few years, we’ve had brass students double-majoring in things like Mathematics, Computer Science, Human Organizational Development, English, Political Science, Physics, and much more. There are also programs like our fantastic new Undergraduate Business Minor that help our students get the most out of their VU academic experience.
Because Vanderbilt is a very high-achievement kind of place, the standard of excellence is very high. And the Brass area is no different. We hold our students to very high standards of performance, scholarship, professional behavior, and personal integrity. But that doesn’t mean perfection. It means having the bar set very high, but then coupling that with training about what to do if (and when) you don’t meet that bar. We’re not afraid of the word failure here, because we teach people how to fail forward. I tell my students, “If you aren’t failing, you’re not growing”. When a student doesn’t meet an expectation, we help them get up, dust themselves off, and keep moving forward with a new level of knowledge and experience. In other words, this is a safe place to take risks, to aim high, and to push yourself because there’s real and actual support around you at all times. There are faculty mentors and a community of peers that have your back and who will help you as you grow and develop. And it’s a safe place to be who are and think what you think. It’s a place where people can belong and thrive as they become who they want to become as musicians and as human beings. Does that sound cheesy? I don’t care, because it’s who we are. Sound too good to be true? Talk to one of our current or former students and get back to me.
Any time we talk about achievement and excellence we also have to talk about health and wellness, which is something that Vanderbilt does really well. When you’re in an environment with tons of brilliant and talented people who hold a very high standard of excellence for themselves, things like holistic wellness and mental health MUST be a top priority, and that is a big part of the culture for the Vanderbilt Brass studios. We are unafraid and unashamed to take an entire lesson time to talk to our students about work-life balance, healthy thought patterns, performance anxiety, and how your music-making relates to your sense of worth and belonging. Sometimes the biggest problem in your playing is your embouchure or airflow or valve technique. But sometimes it’s about the negative self talk you’re dealing with as you play. Or something totally unrelated to music that is following you into the practice room.
Here, we believe that holistic training and mentorship is the only way to go, because the best music you can make is the music you make with your whole self. Musicians who are happy, healthy, fulfilled, and confident will ultimately make better music over time. And when a student needs help and care that are beyond our expertise as brass faculty, we have an amazing Student Care Network at VU that fills those needs. And speaking of support, did you know that our financial aid at VU ranks among the very top in the whole country? There are so many students walking around the halls at Vanderbilt that would not be here if it weren’t for the amazing financial support they’ve gotten, either through merit-based awards or through the unbelievable Opportunity Vanderbilt program.
Industry-standard skillsets, in an environment of holistic training and mentorship.
One of the hallmarks of our brass faculty at Vanderbilt is the fact that we are all committed to equipping our students with a wide range of skills that will enable them to be successful in the modern music industry. Lots of jargon and buzz-words, I know… but it’s actually true. If you look at the resumés of the brass faculty, you will see that we have experience in many of the world’s great orchestras, but you will also see recordings for film scores and video games, you’ll see jazz, global music, country music, publishing, arranging, chamber music, TV shows, musical theater, and the list goes on. We are passionate about making sure that our students are able to have the same versatility that we have, and we follow through with experiences that help promote that.
Brass students in Colombia on a wind ensemble tour
Brass students play in our fantastic Orchestra and Wind Symphony, and through those ensembles they get to do album recording projects and even travel abroad. You can check out the latest Wind Symphony CD here, which just happens to feature our very own Jose Sibaja. Both our Wind Ensemble and Big Band have been to Colombia in recent years, and the Big Band also records albums (which win Downbeat Awards) and performs at places like the JEN Conference. Our chamber groups, which meet three times weekly, give students those all-important listening and chamber music skills that impact basically everything else they do.
We actively promote diversity of repertoire, style, and genre in all we do, because we recognize that the future of the music industry is (and should be) more inclusive and broad in scope. We want our students to graduate with a vast arsenal of skills and experiences from their 4 years here, so they often work on pieces and have experiences that they would normally have to wait until graduate school to do. Things like:
Preparing unaccompanied works and “concept pieces” (pieces with narration, acting, special lighting effects)
Performing pieces with electronics, vocoders, and looping stations
Composing and arranging works (and getting them performed on concerts)
Putting together a website and social media platforms, developing marketing and branding skills
Going out into the community to perform concerts, practice outreach and service
Don’t get me wrong, our students do all the standard stuff too. Etudes, excerpts, standard repertoire, and so on. It’s just that, like so many facets of this university, we want to go beyond the standard things, perhaps even expanding the definition of what those standard things ought to be.
And lastly, perhaps most importantly, we want our Vanderbilt Brass students to be good people. To be known for their kindness, maturity, trustworthiness, friendliness, and emotional intelligence. It’s not something you can put on a syllabus, or necessarily give a grade for. It’s something that has to be worked into the culture of a place from top to bottom, something that is talked about, constantly and consistently. So we do that. We teach our students how to get a job, but also train them to be able to keep it. We guide our students as they build their brand and platform, and also counsel them that there is nothing more important than their integrity and humanity. Talk to one of our students and you’ll understand what I mean.
If you’ve made it to this point on the page, thanks so much for reading. I wrote so much because I believe so much in our program, our faculty, our university, and our students. I wanted to share what is unique about our program, why I love it, and why I get up every morning excited to come to work. The people I work with, the values we believe in, and the incredible humans who study here make me proud to be a part of Vanderbilt University.
~ Jeremy Wilson, January 2022
