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Back to New York
Big city, big draw for clarinetist.
- Maureen Hurd admits that she gets homesick for Iowa.
Hurd, a 1994 music graduate of Iowa State, also admits the reason she returned
to New York City was because she missed that city as well.
"I am lucky to have had good experiences in both parts of the country,"
she said.
After graduating from Iowa State, Hurd earned two master's degrees in the
mid 1990s and a doctorate degree in 2002, all from the Yale School of Music.
During her initial three-and-a-half year stay in New Haven, Conn., Hurd
says she had "lots of gigs in both New Haven and New York City."
As an orchestral clarinetist, she has performed with New York City's Jupiter
Symphony and the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. She appeared as a soloist
and chamber musicians in concerts throughout the United States, Canada and
Germany including concerts in New York City's Merkin Hall, Cathedral of
Saint John the Divine and Riverside Church.
"One of the performances even got a review in the (New York) Times,"
she said. "I had a lot of good stuff happening."
Then Hurd got a call from Iowa State. Her clarinet professor, Joseph Messenger,
was going on sabbatical for a semester and Hurd was offered the job on a
leave-replacement basis.
"Things were starting to happen to me in New York and then I move back
to Iowa," she said. "I was gone for five years.
"It was important for me to develop my professional career as a performer
and teacher in order to complete my doctorate at Yale, which has a unique
doctoral program that requires three to five years of professional experience
in order to earn the degree."
Those five years were spent in a series of music teaching jobs that took
Hurd to Pittsburg State University and Ft. Hays State University (both in
Kansas) to the University of Central Arkansas. She co-founded Colloquy,
a contemporary chamber ensemble, won a prize for her lecture-recital at
the 2001 International Clarinet Association convention and continued to
perform in New York City occasionally.
"I loved the Midwest and the work I was doing there," she said.
But New York City maintained a strong pull for Hurd, who knew she needed
a teaching job in the New York area in order to survive financially.
Then Rutgers University and the Mason Gross School of Music in suburban
New York City called.
"Teaching in a university setting is my strength," she said.
For the past two years, Hurd has been a tenure-track faculty member at Rutgers
as the sole clarinet instructor. Now she is starting to work her way back
into the city's performing community. She performed a solo and chamber music
recital at Christ and St. Stephen's Church near Lincoln Center in Manhattan
last spring.
And as an active New York performer of new music, she has appeared with
the Prism Players and in such venues as the Theater for the New City, the
Present Company Theatorium and the Medicine Show Theater.
"With all the jobs I've had as a professor, it's important to be an
active performer as well," she said. "Yes, my full-time position
is teaching, but it's important for me to have a profile as a performer.
"I think teaching makes me a better performer and performing makes me a
better teacher."
Hurd hopes to travel to Europe this spring for performances in England and
maybe France. During the summer months she teaches and performs as a member
of the faculty of the Wyoming Seminary Performing Arts Institute in northeastern
Pennsylvania.
But she plans to continue to live in New York City and seek professional
jobs – a process she knows is long-term.
Maureen Hurd
Music Today
Fall 2003
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