Music to her ears

“I wish I’d had the opportunity to be a music student here,” laments Nora Beck, associate professor of music. “Lewis & Clark is a wonderfully free and open place to learn. The personal attention students get from the faculty is unlike anything I experienced in college. And Portland is a great place for a music student. The downtown area is small enough for comfort, but big enough to have a very good symphony, opera, and art museum. And the jazz scene is outstanding.”

She may have missed out on the student experience herself, but she’s been making sure that her students don’t miss a thing. “I want to help them develop confidence in their own imaginations,” she says. That’s the reason behind some of the imaginative exercises students experience in her class—such as the day she instructed students to bring a camera to class so they could photograph visual rhythms. That assignment became the seed for a junior recital by Amy Williams, Junction City, Oregon, who combined moonlight photographs with a performance of the Moonlight Sonata. “Amy took these ideas to a wonderful place,” says Beck. “It was very imaginative.”

“Students have so many opportunities here,” says Beck. “They can do a 14-week London program that’s packed with concerts and lectures. They can study virtually any instrument, including the Japanese koto or African marimba. They can learn new composing and recording techniques and cut their own CDs in our electronic studio. The diversity and richness of the curriculum are amazing.”