It is Swarthmore\u2019s philosophy that the \u201cability to understand works of art — either through analysis or practice — is the key to a richer understanding of the human experience,\u201d and Nathan Anderson \u201819 is one student who understands this fully. He has embraced art throughout his college experience and will graduate this semester with a major in Art History and a minor in Music, though he became involved with music as both an academic subject and recreational activity long before he was a Swarthmore student. He received formal music education from the Portsmouth Music and Arts Center (PMAC), which paved his path to pursue further musical interests. Anderson took piano lessons as early as five years old, learned how to play the saxophone in sixth grade, and joined his high school\u2019s jazz band. By the time he entered Swarthmore, he knew he wanted to continue with his musical pursuits, joining the wind ensemble and jazz ensemble during his first year at Swarthmore.<\/p>\n
Although music has always been a big part of Anderson\u2019s life, Swarthmore still provided him with new and exciting experiences, particularly in its music theory courses and jazz ensemble ensemble. The music theory courses he took at Swarthmore delved much deeper and were much more \u201cadvanced than [his] high school\u2019s,\u201d and the ensemble introduced Anderson to \u201cbig band\u201d music, which he had \u201cno big exposure to\u201d prior to Swarthmore. \u201cI was used to playing a different type of music coming from jazz band in high school,\u201d Anderson says, so his performances in the jazz ensembles at Swarthmore were always a unique and worthwhile experience. In fact, if it weren\u2019t for his involvement with the ensembles at Swarthmore, Anderson says he \u201cmost likely would have to give [music] up,\u201d \u00a0and he credits the college for giving him an \u201copportunity to continue playing [his] instruments.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Anderson did not limit his musical interests to only be involved in the Music Program; he also was able to integrate his Music minor with his Art History major by placing much of his academic focus on medieval studies. His favorite experience was during the Fall semester of 2018 when he combined both his interests in music and art history and sung in the Early Music Ensemble, a student group formed by Anderson himself and Professor James Blasina. The ensemble, which was funded by the Fetter Chamber Music Program, performed vocal music from the sixteenth century, specifically madrigal pieces. Anderson admits that that performance was a little bit out of his \u201ccomfort zone, but it was still a fantastic experience.\u201d By the end of the semester, Anderson was proud of what the group had to present.<\/p>\n
Music has always been about fun for Anderson, so although he does not intend on continuing to study music professionally, he hopes to still play recreationally, perhaps \u201cin a community group\u201d of some sort. Balancing music as a hobby with a career can be challenging for some, but \u00a0Anderson feels that Swarthmore taught him well how to \u201ckeep [music] fun and not too serious,\u201d a distinction that is very important to him and is sure to follow him after graduation.\n<\/p>\n
Maria Consuelo de Dios ’21<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is Swarthmore\u2019s philosophy that the \u201cability to understand works of art — either through analysis or practice — is the key to a richer understanding of the human experience,\u201d and Nathan Anderson \u201819 is one student who understands this fully. He has embraced art throughout his college experience and will graduate this semester with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":7560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7561,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7559\/revisions\/7561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}