Wheaton Blog

Brooke (Bisson) Hubner ’02.  Church Organist, Wedding Musician, Grantwriter, Fulbright Recipient. Two days before graduating from Wheaton, I received a phone call telling me that I had been awarded the Fulbright scholarship that I had applied for a few months previously. Suddenly, I went from having no post-graduation plans to spending a year in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I studied Acadian music and culture while earning a Masters degree in Atlantic Canada Studies from Saint Mary’s University. After returning home, I got a job working at The MacDowell Colony, an artists’ residency program in Peterbrough, New Hampshire. In addition to playing some of Edward MacDowell’s piano pieces in the room where they were composed (probably the coolest musical opportunity that I have ever had), I got to meet a lot of amazing artists and I got to walk the same paths in the woods and visit some of the studios where Thornton Wilder wrote Our Town, where Leonard Bernstein wrote his Mass, where Aaron Copland wrote Billy the Kid, and where DuBose and Dorothy Heyward wrote Porgy and Bess. I got married in 2005, and when my husband got a job offer in Maine, I was sorry to leave the Colony but was happy to return to my home state. These days, I live in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, with my husband and our three cats. I recently took on a job as a church organist here and am all ready in the thick of planning music for the twenty something-odd weddings that are happening in our little seaside town this summer. I also work part time at a small non-profit, writing grants, planning events, and doing whatever else needs doing. When I’m not working or practicing, I am usually found volunteering at the Opera House at Boothbay Harbor, reading, or writing.

Categories:
• Music