The journey of earning a college degree comes with a lot to carry.
Especially if you’re a tuba player.
Autumn Choate, soon-to-be graduate of the Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) Department in the College of Letters, Arts & Sciences, has played the impressive instrument for over a decade while simultaneously dipping her toe in other musical areas.
“I’ve been a tuba player since sixth grade, and I write music, so my degree is in composition and instrumental performance,” said Autumn. “I have also dabbled in bass trombone, was a singer for several years and learned electric bass while I’ve been at UCCS.”
Despite her love for the musical arts, Autumn wasn’t always set on going to school for the subject. She originally enrolled at the Air Force Academy and had attended prep school for it, but had to leave during boot camp after the loss of a family member.
“After that, I reevaluated and decided that path wasn’t for me anymore, and tried a semester at Pikes Peak State College, but that didn’t feel right either,” Autumn shared. “About a year and a half later, I wanted to get back into school and heard about UCCS’s music program that had started only a semester or two before I enrolled. I told myself I’ll try it and see how it goes. And immediately I knew it, and the people in it, were great.”
The VAPA program strives to help students hone their specializations while also learning about other areas in the musical arts, a characteristic Autumn highly appreciated during her time in it.
“It’s such an open opportunity program where you’re not just learning about your specific track,” she said. “It’s a very multifaceted music program that I have learned so much from and really enjoyed my time in.”
One significant part of that program for Autumn was her lessons with Tim Hoffman, a tuba lecturer in VAPA.
“I’ve been taking lessons with him for all three years that I’ve been here,” Autumn said. “Every one of my tuba lessons with him has been awesome and attuned to what I needed during that lesson, whether it was a day where I needed to practice and play, or a day where I couldn’t focus on playing and needed to work through other things. That is such an important thing when you play an instrument, because your body has so much to do with your performance.”
With the dedication and study required for instrumental performance, balancing the physical and mental stress it comes with is vital, and support from teachers like Tim can make a huge difference in keeping oneself healthy in their pursuit of their art.
“I’ve gotten to the point over these three years, with all of his help, that I just had my senior recital on Tuesday and I went up on stage and performed probably the best I ever have in front of an audience,” said Autumn. “I’m a good player now and I’m confident in my skills, but I would not have been able to say that a couple of years ago. I feel like people hear and see that I have improved, and it’s because of that consistent teaching that has gotten me to this point.”
Autumn’s hard work and practice are paying off, as she’s one of a select few students chosen for Berklee NYC’s one-year Writing and Production for Musical Theater master’s program.
“I’m so thrilled and honored to have been chosen because they only select twenty students for the program,” Autumn said. “It is a very, very unique opportunity and from what I’ve heard, that one year is very intense but you leave on the other side ready to enter the industry. I’ve never lived anywhere but Colorado my whole life, so I’ll be picking up my entire life and moving it halfway across the country.”
Though moving from Colorado to New York will be a big change for Autumn, her sister plans to join her there, so she’ll still have a part of home with her.
She also brings a little bit of home with her through the philosophy she goes by–a saying she learned from her dad that has become her motto: “I did it because I was scared.”
“It was one of those things that my sister and I have really tried to take to heart as we get older and are doing scary things, because being ready is not a feeling, it’s a decision,” said Autumn. “Things are going to be scary. It might not go right, but what if it does? It’s a leap you have to take and it’s how we find out what we love and where we want to be.”