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Oberlin Music Scholar Wins Prestigious Competition
 Kelsey Cowger Photo by Al Fuchs |
Kelsey Cowger '02, a double-degree student majoring in musicology and politics, has won the Lake Michigan Scholar Search, sponsored by the Chicago Civic Orchestra [CCO]. Founded in 1919, the CCO is the only training orchestra affiliated with a major American orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Cowger, 21, is one of only two winners of the competition. To be considered for the award, she submitted--besides the requisite resume and references--a draft of a pre-concert lecture (on Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra) and a videotape of herself delivering it.
As part of her prize, she has the honor of delivering a lecture at Symphony Center on Sunday, May 20, at 6:30 PM, prior to a concert conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. She will also write the program notes for the concert, although the program has not yet been announced.
"Winning the competition is particularly advantageous for me," says Cowger. "Unlike the vast majority of musicology kids, I'm not so set on pursuing a career in academia-- although that could certainly be in the cards. What I'd really like to do is to be the musicologist-in-residence at an orchestra, especially one that, like the London Sinfonieta or the Ensemble InterContemporain, emphasizes contemporary music as a major component of its repertoire. What I'm doing for the Civic Orchestra is exactly what I'd like to do, on a broader scale, as a career."
Cowger is from Omaha, Nebraska. Her mother, Leslie Carter '76, is a bassist with the Omaha Symphony.
Cowger studies with Professor of Musicology Sylvan Suskin, who says that just by entering the competition, Cowger proves "she has gumption and chutzpha." His reaction upon hearing that she'd won?
"Obviously I was absolutely thrilled for her. Anything like this can't help but further her career," he says. "I think she's really going to make it. She writes beautifully."
Cowger believes musicology to be a relatively young discipline--"at least," she says, "the way it's practiced now."
"Relatively few people work on contemporary subjects, so there's a lot of freedom to tread new ground, as it were, and explore things that are hands-off to a lot of academics. Most contemporary music is treated in a less than serious fashion (at least by academics and the majority of audiences). It certainly isn't privileged in the same way as the musical canon. I think this is really a shame; a lot of fascinating and beautiful stuff has been composed in the last 30 years that is virtually unknown. The study of contemporary music is one of the most important roles a musicologist can play right now--if nothing else, to try to engage people on a number of different levels about music they find foreign or frightening or particularly challenging."
As if being double-degree at Oberlin isn't rigor enough, Cowger is also enrolled in the honors program; Claudia Macdonald is her thesis advisor. The working title for Cowger's thesis is Elements of Non-Narrative Drama in Avant-Garde Chamber Music. "I have been on a big Crumb kick for years," she says,"and my honors project has lots of Crumb in it." Cowger spent Winter Term in London and Belgium, where she did research on Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle, so she'll have something to say about them, too.
On the political
front, Cowger has logged in countless hours as a campaign volunteer, most
recently as an Oberlin
Cole Scholar working for Bill Bradley during his presidential bid.
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