<p>That’s my d. She is finishing up a fifth-year of a combined Ph.D. program in Musicology and Italian Studies. Smith had by far the best LAC program for her (she was heavily recruited by Williams and a bunch of other LACs). She double-majored in composition/Italian Studies, was secretary of the orchestra, played baroque chamber music, sang in the combined Smith/Mt. Holyoke women’s medieval/Renaissance music choir, had her chamber works performed, and, in her STRIDE project, prepared a performance edition of the first opera ever written by a woman (Francesca Caccini), which was performed at Smith in her second year (and which wrote her ticket to graduate school). There are so many musicologists coming out of Smith that they have an annual alumnae breakfast at the American Musicological Society conference.</p>
<p>The Smith program was about double the size of Amherst’s, which barely fields an orchestra, and some of the Amherst profs teach their courses at Smith, as they can’t find enough music students there (particularly true of ethnomusicology. Lessons can be arranged: as I remember, my d. did voice, and lessons in viola da gamba.</p>