Mary Beth Orr

So when I was doing the performance education, I, I think I got an amazing education.

I don't wanna say anything that would hint otherwise that I am not aware of the wonderful education I got.

I will say, though, that at the time, the trend of what felt like was necessary to be taught was to, um, specialize on one thing, dedicate your all to this one thing.

This is how you win an audition.

The career path is either join a military band, teach at the college, or play in an orchestra.

And your path to those things is very specific, and especially go to grad school right after undergrad.

Use grad school to practice and take auditions everywhere.

It's like, okay, how do I do that while I'm trying to pay for graduate school? 'Cause even with the...

Hey, guess what, everybody? Even with a fellowship, even with a fellowship and assistantship, 'cause I did one week of graduate school at Carnegie Mellon after my senior year of college at Shenandoah, and Carnegie Mellon was a beautiful, wonderful place.

I just couldn't eat.

I couldn't sleep.

I burst out crying in the middle of a Shop 'n Save 'cause they didn't have the type of soup I was used to that I wanted.

And I mean, like, no makeup.

I didn't, I didn't even, I didn't look in the mirror once before I left for, you know, whatever, even before taking my ID picture, right? Like, my body was telling me this is not right.

I think why it wasn't right is, again, what I'm leading into with the style of what, how my education was disseminated.

Emphasis wasn't on being a creative and being an artist.

The emphasis was how we can support you winning a job.

And I wanna phrase it in that way because they wanted to support us.

They wanted us to go out and have the career and the life that we wanted, right? 100%, they were trying to do everything they could for us.

The problem is there was starting to be a shift around that time as well, and I...

And not only just a shift in what was happening in the world and orchestrally in auditions, but also me realizing kind of who I was.

I'm a great student.

I will do what a teacher would tell me to do, oh, 200%.

Overachieve, you know, give the apple to a teacher.

Like, I'm like teacher's pet, man.