On Monday, April 15, Longwood alumna Indira Etwaroo spoke to an audience of Music Education majors in Molnar Recital Hall in Wygal Hall on her journey with her music education major and how expansive it has been for her career.
Currently an executive producer with New York Public Radio, the largest American public radio station, Etwaroo received her Master’s Degree in Dance Education from Temple University before gaining a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies with a concentration in Dance and a Graduate Certification in Women’s Studies. While a student at Longwood University, Etwaroo’s primary instrument was the flute and was active in various campus organizations, including the Longwood Company of Dance.
As a music educator, Etwaroo has served as an adjunct professor at Temple University and has taught music in Honduras to elementary-aged children.
While introducing herself to the audience, Etwaroo said, “I want to spend some time tonight talking about ways to allow the music to be the conduit, the transport towards your own unique place in the world. We’re going to look at music tonight as this ever-evolving, ever-dynamic, ever- engaging, ever-connecting language that has the potential to take you anywhere you want to go.”
She further stated, “We can talk about concert halls to the conference rooms, broadcast studios, arts administration, engineering, production, business, musicology, the legal field, arts advocacy and many, many more fields that are not even on this list.”
According to Etwaroo’s bio on The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space website, Etwaroo has won awards for producing the American Broadcast Premiere of “Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Radio Drama,” and for working a year in Ethiopia to “explore the performance aesthetics that surround the controversial practice of female genital cutting.”
Etwaroo also serves as Founding Executive Producer of The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, a state-of-the-art, broadcast performance venue in Lower Manhattan that provides a space for live broadcasts, concerts and festivals, literary readings, political debates and more, according to The Green Space website.
She said, “For me, I’m driven by principles of innovation. I’m driven by principles of experimentation, about principles of inclusion ... and I’m also driven by the principles of excellence.”
Using the seven musical notes (i.e., letters A through G), Etwaroo commented on the skills and traits that one must have to succeed in their profession. With the musical notes, Etwaroo’s advice included to be open with Collaboration, to be Disciplined, that Excellence is only gained when one is never fully satisfied with oneself, to be open to Failure and risk, to achieve Greatness, to practice Again and again and to Be Brave.
When working as a music teacher to 30 elementary- aged children in Honduras, Etwaroo stated that she used music to bridge the language barrier.
Realizing music as a method of communication, she said she had thought, “Something pretty powerful is happening here, but I’m not standing behind a podium, and I’m not on the marching field, and I’m not drilling students, and I’m not up high, but I’m actually really low, and I’m communicating with these young people.”
Before ending her speech, Etwaroo stated, “Regardless of what degree you graduate with or where you go, I just pray and hope you are arts advocates when you leave here ... Never let people forget how critical the arts are to our society.”
Gordon Ring, professor of Music, said, “She has a pretty wide ranging career, and we were interested in our students finding out what other kind of careers there are out there.”
He further added, “We’re hoping that the music education students will see that they have some other job opportunities by using their degree than just teaching, and we’re also hoping that the music students and art students in general who are not in education will realize that their careers may and probably will involve teaching in some sort of setting.”
As a member of the audience, Ashley McGee, a junior Music Education major, said, “I thought it was actually really helpful for the music majors, just getting them kind of thinking about their career in a broader way and not a one-track sense”
“I think that her experience with education, dance [and] entertainment allows us a more rounder view,” she said.
A Longwood University music T-shirt was given to Etwaroo at the end of the event as a gift by the National Association for Music Education Longwood chapter.
The funding made possible to bring Etwaroo in as a speaker was due to the Rosemary Sprague Cultural Enrichment Fund, a fund that distributes to different departments in the arts field at Longwood University. The fund distributes on a rotating basis to determine which department receives the funding.
