After sadly missing my last potential year of camp as a camper in 1989, I went off to Oberlin College where I studied a little piano, hung out some with Gregg Punswick & Yasmine Zeisler, and majored in Biochemistry.
In 1994, I moved to Madison, Wisconsin, for medical school. While there I played, uh, blues harmonica, in our med student band, The Arrhythmias, playing mostly Motown and early 80's covers. In 1998, I moved to Chicago for residency in pediatrics at Children's Memorial Hospital. Adrian Childs helped me and my wife move in and I got to see him a bit (including meeting Craig and seeing their beautiful ceremony).
Right now I'm a practicing general pediatrician in the Chicago area, and my wife and I are expecting the birth of a little girl this November. As soon as we get to move out of our little city condo, we plan to acquire our first piano -- a long time in coming!
I went to MIT for my undergraduate years, with the intention of studying mathematics and remaining active in music on the side. While I managed to take degrees in both fields, I like to say that I spent those four years learning just how passionate about music I really am. At the very least, it became clear to me that music needed to be more than just an avocation.
With that in mind, I moved on to the world of graduate music study. I completed my Ph.D. in Music Composition (with a minor in Music Theory) at the University of Chicago in 1999. Since then, I've been working in short-term full-time teaching positions, including a semester at UW-Madison (spring 2000) and a year at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign (2000-01). For the Fall of 2001, I have accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Georgia (in Athens, GA, about an hour outside of Atlanta).
Throughout my student years, I continued to play the piano as much as I could, and it often served as my only performance outlet (especially in graduate school, when there was little time for anything else). I've also done some work with conducting. My primary focus has been on music of the past 100 years, especially chamber music.
In March of 1999, I married Craig Wiegert in a ceremony (as traditional a ceremony as one can have without a bride!) attended by many friends and family, including four Campers from my "generation." Craig will spend our first year in Athens putting the final touches on his own dissertation (in a field more traditional for MIT alumni: theoretical astrophysics) before venturing forth into the world of life after graduate school.
I'd love to hear from any and all Camp alumni, especially if you find yourself (currently or in the future) near northeast Georgia. Best wishes to all! :)
...Adrian
I graduated from UW-Madison in Spring 1999 with Bachelor's Degrees in Electrical Engineering and Music Composition and I'm now working for The Trane Company in La Crosse, Wisconsin as a Laboratory Engineer. In my spare time I create things: Music, stories, piano camp websites, all sorts of stuff. I also still perform every once in a while. I wrote a song and played piano for my sister's wedding in summer 2000, and I performed my composition "Intervallic Variations" at the La Crosse New Music Festival in November 2000. In addition to La Crosse, I can occasionally be found in the following places (so if you live nearby and want to get together sometime, let me know): Madison and Fond Du Lac in Wisconsin, Minneapolis and Rochester in Minnesota, Macon Georgia, and Rushville Indiana.
Ryan Conners' Web Site
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I graduated from Stanford University in 1994 with a dual degree in Civil Engineering and History. I joined a petroleum engineering company for about a year and learned to drive semi trucks! The hours were horrible, however, so I left the company and returned to Milwaukee, my home town. I worked for a manufacturing firm for another year and a half, then was offered a position teaching science at a private middle school. Soon afterward I enrolled in a certification program.
About three years ago, I got an offer to teach high school mathematics in Kuwait! Since then, I've had lots of opportunity to travel on my time off and have visited Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Malta, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, the UAE, Oman, Bahrain, and Thailand. Needless to say, it has been an exciting three years! I will return to the States this summer and "settle down" -- until I get the travel bug again -- in Milwaukee. Sadly, I'm still working on my certification....
As for music, being a teacher provides lots of opportunities to perform. My first year in Kuwait I taught choir for a few months due to a staff shortage; since then I have been accompanying the school choir for concerts, etc. Some of us teachers in Kuwait formed a rock band and when our bass player quit I tried to take up his parts on the keyboard. Our band is called "Trashcan Kitty and the Dumpster Pussies" -- after the abundance of stray cats that plague the streets here in Kuwait City. I'm not sure how I will continue with the music back in the States. I would love to join a blues band. (I'm teaching myself the harmonica.)
I graduated from St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin in May of 1999 with a degree in math and a minor in computer science. The college experience was great. I kept up with my music by playing in the jazz ensemble for four years, teaching piano for four, and accompanying the show choir (Swinging Knights) for two. I travelled and/or interned every summer and even spent a semester studying in London. I decided that computers and math are my career calling, so after graduation I moved down to Virginia where I am currently a graduate student in Computer Science at the College of William and Mary. The program here great, and I am enjoying classes and Virginia's mild climate while trying to nail down a specific research topic.
I bought my very own piano this year and am teaching lessons in addition to working on my degrees. Studies will keep me here for maybe four or five more years -- I am in the MS/PhD track. When I finish I'd like to teach computer science at the college level. In the meantime, I've got to finish up my commitments to the government -- I'm being sponsored here at William and Mary by the National Security Agency, so I work up in Washington DC during the summer months.
As far as other activity goes... I "appear frequently" with my church's contemporary ensemble and bell choir. I am once again taking piano lessons for myself, and I dedicate quite a bit of time to doing tae kwon do. Tae kwon do and music keep me sane amidst the technical garble that I deal with (yet love) all day long. It's incredibly relaxing to come home and play some Poulenc or go to the do-jang and stick my hand through a few boards!
If you're ever in the Williamsburg or Washington DC area, let me know! I'd love to catch up with any past piano campers... especially those from the Dr. Bramblet, "In the Jungle", M&M hippo, and cool Carlstein socks generations. Take good care, all.
Libby Wiebel's Web Site
Libby Wiebel's Web Site II
E-mail Libby Wiebel