Laura Brown Named College Student Marshal for Liberal Arts
Congratulations to Laura Brown, who is the 2014 College of the Liberal Arts College Marshal. Laura is a Schreyer Honors student with a double major in Russian and Music. She is also graduating with a master’s degree in Musicology. Laura began studying Russian in her freshman year at Penn State and is now fluent in the language. Her academic interests combine her love for Russian language and culture with her specialization in musicology. In her honors thesis she assesses the early musical formation of the composer Sergei Prokofiev within the context of Russian musical pedagogy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
At Penn State, Laura received the Evan Pugh Senior Scholar Award, the Brewster and Presser Awards from the School of Music, and an Alumni Association scholarship from the College of Arts and Architecture. She won the Penn State Philharmonic Orchestra Concerto Competition in 2012.
In addition to her academic achievements, Laura served as president of the Penn State Association of Students of Russian. She was also vice-president of the Penn State Percussion Club and has performed actively in various musical ensembles both on campus and in wider Central Pennsylvania.
Laura has presented papers at various conferences, including an international symposium in St. Petersburg, Russia, devoted to the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. In the fall she will enter the Ph.D. program in Musicology at Yale University.