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• William Bastian

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Name:

William Bastian M.M.

Title:

Instructor

Department:

Music

What is your field of expertise, and what makes you interested in this field?

I am a singer and a musician.  I love music.  Music is constantly present in my life (whether performing, listening, reading, or philosophizing).  I experience music everywhere...in all aspects of life...in all disciplines.  Musical parallels are everywhere.  To do what I love and love what I teach is not redundant; rather, it is a great recipe for fulfillment.

Can you briefly introduce the academic program (or department) you are in to our prospective students?

The essence of a Music Department is two-fold: 1. to provide a musical presence/experience to both the College and the wider Duluth/Superior communities through performances; and 2. to offer a musical foundation to students who seek to have a significant musical presence in their lives.  The CSS music faculty is a performing music faculty...not an administrative music faculty.  We actually DO what we teach...a concept that, more and more, seems to be the exception, rather than the rule.

What distinguishes St. Scholastica/your program from other good colleges and universities?

CSS is a small private college where the individual is not lost.  Where the Liberal Arts approach offers a wider view of the world than a more direct vocation--intense approach.  And the connection with the Benedictine tradition offers a deeper philosophical foundation to both the immediate College experience and the education you carry for the rest of your life.

What do you like best about St. Scholastica?

Teaching at CSS, offers me the opportunity to share music--this discipline that I love--with everyone with whom I come in contact.  I can do music...teach music...expound upon and think about music...and, ultimately, be a spokesperson for this discipline which I dearly love.

What's your advice for prospective students?

There is a difference between having a "job" and "making a living".  If you love what you do, chances are, you will be good at it and you will enjoy it.  "Work" and "drudgery" will cease to be synonymous, and you will be happy in your fulfillment.

Did we miss something you'd like to say. Say it here...

I am a product of the American Mid-West, which is not a hot-bed of musical culture, and, though I had no intense formal musical training...music was always a presence, and that presence, ultimately, was the ground that would nurture the seed that was my college musical experience...and that became the tree that is my life in music (where I have sung more than 40 different operas all over the U.S., while at the same time doing recitals of various types of music, from Renaissance Lute Songs, to Schubert Lieder, to Pop music of the 20th Century).  You need not be an accomplished musician to study music here.  You only need the desire to discover.