Episode #27: Maria Serkin

Hello and welcome back to the Dominic Brancazio Podcast! In today’s episode we’re joined by Dr. Maria Serkin. Maria is the Associate Professor of Horn at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She has also previously taught at the University of Virginia and the New World School of the Arts and has enjoyed a wonderful performance career holding positions as principal horn with the Florida Grand Opera, the Palm Beach Symphony, the Sarasota Orchestra, the Atlantic Classical Orchestra, and the Charlottesville Symphony.

In today’s conversation we discuss the role of teaching music at the university level and highlight Maria’s journey to her current position today at UNCSA. We specifically go over how Maria got into music, how she discovered her love for teaching, the process for how one applies to teach at the college level, how she runs her studio at UNCSA, the differences in approach to teaching students of different ages, other roles she has at UNCSA besides teaching the horn, and our thoughts on musicians expanding their interests and skill sets in school and in their professional careers.

If you would like to learn more about Maria or about her upcoming work, please check out the links in the description below. I had so much fun getting the chance to talk to Maria in this episode. She graciously let me interview her in her horn studio at UNCSA and if you’re viewing the version of this podcast on YouTube, you’ll be able to see us chat in the video that accompanies the talk. Like I mentioned in the episode, a great college teacher can be one of the biggest influences in a classical musician’s career and I think the students at UNCSA are very lucky to have Dr. Serkin as a professor. I hope you all listening find this conversation to be as fun and insightful as I did. Thank you for listening and now please enjoy the show!

To learn more about Dr. Serkin:

-https://www.mariaserkin.com

-https://www.uncsa.edu/faculty-staff/maria-serkin.aspx

To find out about upcoming events:

-Brass Quintet Seminar at the Carolina Coast: https://www.freespiritmusicnc.com/brass-quintet-seminar

-Hawaii Performing Arts Festival: https://www.hawaiiperformingartsfestival.org/