LC Meridian

Issue date: 3/1/10 Section: Student Life

Courtesy of Jacquelyn Adamn

A slender, red haired young woman stands before a class of 42 eager students. With her red Mac laptop screen displayed on the main projector, she pulls up GarageBand to start a jam session, drops in a few drum loops and asks the class if they like the sound. After a few tries the drum line is set. She grabs her Yamaha bass guitar and riffs a couple of bars. Three young Latinos jockey for position in front of the Mac to mix in their voices to composition. The class laughs and cheers as the volunteers record their voices in several takes, correcting errors and editing out giggles. One applies special effects and adjusts the drum line. The final product is a funky little mp3 that sounds like a tamed Lil Wayne production, wrapped up in little under half an hour. Jacquelyn Adams' Intro to Music class has just had its first cooperative jam session.

Adams joined the Music Department in the fall of 2009 as an adjunct professor. She's also the newest member of the Lehman Woodwind Quintet where she plays French horn. Adams has played more than 500 concerts in a multitude of venues with a diverse set of groups and artists. She performed with the Kanye West Orchestra on their 2007 tour. From 2006 to 2007, she performed with Beauty and the Beast on Broadway in New York City. Vintage Fire Electro-Chamber Band NYC and Prodigal Children are only two of the many bands she plays with. While her preferred instrument is the French horn, she also plays bass guitar, piano, and occasionally, trumpet.

Adams is a third-generation musician who grew up in Saginaw, Texas listening to her dad sing opera and her mother play the flute. Both her parents have degrees in music from the University of North Texas. She has fond memories of playing football with the guys near the old stockyards, listening to live music flow out of the old western saloons, and skateboarding when she was not home practicing music. Adams now calls the Big Apple home, but she still longs for the "largest $2 beers in America" that can only be found in Texas. She has lived in Washington Heights ever since she arrived in New York City in 2006, where she finds hints of the Tex-Mex food she savors.

French horn has been what she calls her "money instrument," winning her the scholarships that funded her studies. Her connection to it came as a set of odd coincidences. Her mother was the band leader of the Lake Country Christian School; when the band needed French horn players, 10 year-old Adams decided to play. She liked the fact that playing what was considered a guy's instrument would allow her to hang with boys. In 2003, she earned her bachelor's degree at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and two years later got her master's at Yale. This spring, she'll earn her doctorate of Musical Arts at SUNY Stony Brook.

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