Happy second week of the semester! From celebrating MLK Day, to watching a historic inauguration of the first woman vice president, we have started this semester with a bang. The Office of Admissions also has had an exciting start to the year. From enrolling new students for the spring semester, to planning more recruitment events for the spring and accepting and reading applications for the fall, the Office of Admissions is working hard to recruit your future Salem Siblings.

We are continuing to offer daily personalized, virtual tours with the help of our awesome Admissions Ambassadors. We also have started offering monthly information sessions, regular FAFSA events with our friends in Financial Aid, and easy-to-book meetings with our admissions counselors.

We have accepted some very promising students and are excited to keep admitting more! If you know a student who would be a good fit for Salem, please send her our way! We would love to introduce her to the Salem that you know and love.

Janice Harring-Hendon
Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management

Salem’s graduate music program is international in scope and visibility. Students are enrolled from Turkey, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, England, and China, as well as from throughout the United States. They have become active presenters and performers in state, national, and international conferences and festivals, including the Music Teachers National Association, North Carolina Music Teachers Association, and NC Music Educators Association, as well as in international virtual festivals in Peru and Turkey in November and December 2020.

Additionally, students have given concerts, workshops, and interviews for national festivals in Peru and Turkey. They continue to receive accolades for their contributions to the music teaching field from leading music educators in the United States, and to bring positive, high visibility to the graduate music program at Salem College.

In November 2020, five Salem Masters pianists (Ekin Ustunel, Andrea Arevola, Scarlette Kerr, Anni Wang, and Celeste Watson) gave presentations in Turkey’s first ever piano International Virtual Piano Conference, focusing exclusively on health and wellness. Hosted by Anadolu University, (the fifth largest university in Europe), Salem’s students received high visibility and Salem students shared the platform with some of Turkey’s most respected pianists. Their sessions were the most attended.

As Ekin Ustunel (MM ’20) reported: “We received countless emails, texts, follows on social media,were flooded with thank you notes for speaking up, sharing that there is hope [for injury-free piano playing]…for some, we were exactly what they needed and they are already planning their post-pandemic visit to Winston-Salem…We hope that we became a good bridge to them all for information, hope and understanding while representing our education and who we are as musicians the best way possible.”

And in December 2020, Master of Music students Celeste Watson and Andrea Arevola were featured performers at the 2020 Beethoven Festival in Lima, Peru. Andrea also gave master classes and presented workshops on injury-preventive technique and pedagogy. An exciting 2020!

Barbara Lister-Sink
Director, Graduate Music Program