Student Spotlight: Lucas Amory

Lucas Amory is a Music and German double concentrator, with a secondary in Government. He is also participating in the Harvard-New England Conservatory Dual-Degree program. “I play piano,” Lucas explains “and I started conducting while I’ve been at Harvard; those have been my primary pursuits, but I also sing in the University Choir as a Baritone.” He is also involved in the theatre scene at Harvard; last April, Lucas was one of the Music Directors for a production of Natasha Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, and he hopes to lead a production of The Last Five Years this spring. “There is a mindset at Harvard to try and cram in as many things as possible,” Lucas says, “It’s part of the reason people are here in the first place: they have this bursting love for so many different aspects of life. It’s a very contagious thing, the desire to do everything.”

Q: Describe how you chose your path of musical study at Harvard. What influenced your decisions?

Lucas: “I was very sure I wanted to go into music, not necessarily as a pianist but I wanted to explore different paths. I had been thinking about conducting for some time, so I took a couple of conducting classes, and then the Bach Society Orchestra took me on [as Music Director] and that became sort of a main extracurricular for me which has been extremely valuable for me as an undergraduate … Until I got to Harvard, I was primarily playing classical piano, and then I saw people around me who were interested in so many things.

[German and Music] cross over in so many different ways, it only made sense that once I started learning German I kept taking classes. So many of them tie-in culturally, in some way, to classical music and it gives me a new perspective on things. I can draw on a fairly deep historical  knowledge of not only composers and their environments, but also the thinkers of the time who were instrumental to the construction of the German identity.

Q: Which music courses have you found the most rewarding, and why? 

Lucas: “One of the first that pops out to me is the Music 175 course I took with Federico Cortese and John Hamilton on Mueller. It was an astounding course; each week we would get to know a Mueller Symphony and the scholarship surrounding that work. The lecture would be an hour of John Hamilton speaking, usually about that scholarship or authors whose work is relevant to that Symphony, and then Maestro Cortese would speak technically about the symphony for an hour. I felt like I was getting a deep dive into things I didn’t know about Mueller before that course.

The two classes I’ve taken with Claire Chase were absolutely phenomenal. She’s an absolute blessing. I was in the Harvard New Music Ensemble and I took a freshman seminar [Social Justice and Community Building] with her, that was actually over Zoom; it was a little bit tricky but she was still bringing in artists every week. Claire Chase is one of the most salient figures [in contemporary music] currently; she’s really at the center of the scene right now. Between having different guest artists each week and learning about their work, I got so much out of that class. It speaks to the force of nature that she is – she is both extremely energetic and she sparks enthusiasm in class, and also extremely comforting to people and never hesitates to allow us to feel that we’re being completely supported in what we do.”

Q: Is there an experience within the Music Department that helped shape your artistic identity? How do you hope to carry that with you after graduation?

Lucas: “Benji Perry graduated a few years ago, and his thesis was to compose and write a completely new opera based on James Joyce’s Ulysses which he called NIGHTTOWN. He recruited musicians from Harvard and the surrounding Cambridge community, and it was this collaborative effort where the two music scenes met. I played orchestral and rehearsal piano and if I think back to the most fulfilling musical projects that I’ve worked on at Harvard, that’s what jumps out at me first. It says a lot about Benji’s own genius that he’s able to create these musical earworms in the contemporary classical style that have stayed with me for two years. It was also a moment where I was inspired to work with singers a little bit further. [NIGHTTOWN] was a project that I probably wouldn’t have been part of normally, but I went out of my way to ask Benji if I could join, knowing who he was and what he could do. It inspired me to do things here that are outside of my musical comfort zone. It spurred me to continue seeking out interests in musical theater, in continuing my path down conducting, and these other relatively new ventures that, compared to the fact that I had been playing piano for 15 years, felt very daring.”

Q: Do you have any advice for students in the department?

Lucas: “All of my advice comes down to not having fear. It’s one of my resolutions heading into 2024. One of the reasons why I stuck with piano and I didn’t really explore outside of that for much of my life was that I was afraid. It’s something that the Music department does well, driving out fear. By advertising all these different courses and opportunities it squeezes you out of your shell a little bit. The fact that Harvard can push you to do different things is in your favor; it’s something you should use to your advantage and not perceive as a limitation.”