ISU Music Practicum Students

       This semester, I had the privilege of serving my internship with my community gospel choir, 1akord, under the direction of my friend and mentor Joshua Cooper . This group has been a part of the Central Illinois community for over 15 years and has ministered throughout the area through music and community engagement. My role during this internship was Assistant Director and Media Coordinator. As Assistant Director, I was responsible for helping choose songs alongside the director for performances and ministering opportunities, teaching voice parts, running sectional and full group rehearsals, and directing portions of performances. During rehearsals, I tracked attendance, led warm ups, recorded rehearsal sessions, and distributed those recordings to group members to help them continue practicing outside of rehearsal. After rehearsals, I listened back to recordings with the director and discussed areas that needed improvement. During performances, I acted as a...

Another internship that I had this year was with the Bloomington-Normal Youth Symphony. There, I worked as a String Intern, where I helped lead sectionals, manage the orchestra library, manage the social media, and occasionally sub in the percussion section! This internship was sent to me by my viola professor Dr. Lewis. I had originally applied for this position the summer after my freshmen year but did not get it. So, I applied again the summer after my sophomore year, and this time I got the position!  I worked with one other intern, the BNYS program manager, and the BNYS director, and we all got very close throughout the year. It was really fun to have a work environment that was so supportive of each other and really appreciated each other's strengths. My favorite part of this internship was when we had a performance at Westminster village. Although it was very stressful, I felt very supported by my team, and by the end of the night I felt very proud of our work.  From th...

Another internship opportunity that I was very fortunate to have was with the American Viola Society. This opportunity was forwarded to me by my viola professor, Dr. Lewis. From there, I had to submit an application and go through an interview process. I remember being very nervous because I was up against people from all over the country, and I wasn't sure if I even compared to anyone from music conservatories. However, with my experience in social media through the School of Music office internship and the String Project Administrative Assistant Intern position, I was able to land a position as a social media intern in the American Viola Society Internship Program.  In this position, I worked with a team of two other interns to create social media posts for the AVS Instagram and Facebook accounts. What I worked on the most was infographics about the upcoming AVS festival and collaborative videos that featured violist from across the country! My favorite project that I did in this...

Another internship that I had here at ISU was the position of String Project Administrative Assistant Intern. In this position, I worked closely with String Project Director Dr. Katherine Lewis to support the String Project faculty in a variety of ways. I ran all social media accounts, assisted with their Birds Give Back fundraising campaign, started an alumni feature series on their social media, managed the enrollment rosters, helped develop plans for the program's 25th anniversary celebration, and completed a variety of other administrative tasks as needed.  I got this internship sort of on accident! I remember I was talking to Dr. Lewis in my lesson one day about my internship doing social media in the School of Music office, and she had mentioned how they might need someone to do social media for String Project. From there, Dr. Lewis and I crafted the position to involve more administrative tasks, because that was the kind of experience I wanted to be able to put on my resume....

Hi! My name is Katelynn Lesinski and I had a couple of internships in my time at ISU! The first internship that I had was in the School of Music office, where I worked with another student to make social media posts for the School of Music Instagram and Facebook accounts. We made posts about upcoming events, guest artists, and lots of engagement posts for current students, future students, and alumni. I got this internship because the student who had run the SoM social media accounts was graduating, and Dr. Ransom wanted to fill the position. I expressed my interest and experience in an email to Dr. Ransom, and I got the position! Throughout this position, I learned a lot about time management and digital content creation. I also learned a lot about viewer engagement. I had such a fun time working with my fellow intern Neil Alford, and Dr. Ransom, and would highly recommend this internship to anyone interested in social media!