Emma Breen is finishing her master’s degree in trumpet functionality and is preparing to continue her research at UCLA this fall as a Ph.D. She has also dabbled in the field in the planet of science, a passion she has equally with music and plans to continue.
2023 Commencement Speaker Emma Breen
“You have to be versatile,” Breen mentioned, reflecting on her choices to pursue various paths. “And UCLA is a excellent location to prepare for a profession in the twenty-1st century.”
The Class of 2023 graduate speaker came to UCLA pretty consciously. She chose UCLA more than the Royal Academy of Music, each mainly because she wanted to perform with trumpet professor Jens Lindemann and mainly because UCLA provided a various sort of education.
“The Royal Academy is substantially a lot more conventional in its strategy,” Breen mentioned. “I felt that UCLA would give me possibilities to do other exciting items, and that was excellent. I was also fortunate adequate to get a scholarship from the Mimi Alpert Foundation, which seriously produced it probable to come to LA.”
Breen amassed fairly a record although performing her graduate perform at UCLA. She was chosen to play with Disney’s All-American College Band. She won the position of principal trumpet in the American Youth Symphony. She is an active session recording artist and has performed all through the United States.
“There is a lot of chance for musicians in Los Angeles,” Breen mentioned. “You have to maintain your eyes open and be active.” It can be a excellent location to perform.”
Preparing for a gig this May perhaps at Tһe Catalina Jazz Club
Breen jumped into the life of a experienced musician with each feet. In addition to recitals and performances with ensembles at UCLA, her most current perform involves recording for A unicornupcoming animated series on ҺBO by the director The Powerpuff Girls. That in turn led to an invitation to play at San Diego Comic-Con this summer season. And all this came in addition to becoming a leader in the American Youth Symphony (AIS).
“It is so substantially perform,” Breen mentioned. “I got the most recent AIS music when the trumpet studio was in Boulder, Colorado for the National Trumpet Competitors. And I was sitting in the hotel space, searching at the material, I believed to myself, ‘This is also substantially. I am going to have to leave the trumpet.’”
But then Breen got down to organization, getting she was capable of understanding music and preserving her demanding schedule. She credits AIS’s welcoming culture.
“Most of the other musicians are a tiny bit older than me and have a lot more expertise,” Breen mentioned. “But they took me in correct away and gave me a lot of help.” It seriously produced a distinction.”
Then there is Brin’s scientific perform. Breen does not have an undergraduate degree in science, but she’s worked in a lab due to the fact higher college. As an undergraduate student at Northwestern University, she was aspect of the university’s renowned Pinkett Laboratory as effectively as the SONIC/ATLAS laboratory, collaborating with NASA’s lengthy-variety space missions conducting cognitive investigation in Russian and English.
Straight from the Laboratory
How Breen ended up with 4 years of lab expertise — devoid of a single undergraduate science class — is a story we’ve covered just before, and it is worth reading. But it wasn’t just an undergraduate job. Breen at present conducts stem cell investigation in the Zamudio lab inside UCLA’s Division of Molecular Cell Developmental Biology.
“Science is essential to me,” Breen mentioned. “It feeds a aspect of me that music does not.” And I see no want to pick out in between the two. I know folks at times assume that if you happen to be not laser-focused on one particular factor, you cannot do it effectively. But I disagree.”