Brian and Marianne Breneman met when the College of Music was a school and the old building still had a room called “the smoker.” Their music bond and shared love of the College has led them to create a significant new scholarship for Music students.
It started as a joke. “Maybe we could name the smoker,” Marianne said to her husband, Brian.
The Music alums were seeing all the large gifts coming in for the Billman Music Pavilion, and they were in awe of the facility they call a game changer for the MSU College of Music. They knew they wanted to do something to give back to the place that is a big part of their history, but what should it be?
That is when they decided to establish the Brian and Marianne Breneman Endowed Scholarship in Music to benefit MSU Symphony Orchestra and Wind Symphony students. Their discussions started after seeing Dean James Forger in a video about the construction of the new music pavilion.
“We didn’t have a million dollar check to write, but we could definitely build something over time. That’s why we started with the scholarship, with a certain amount now, and plan to make it bigger and bigger,” Brian explained. “A scholarship that will support one or two students now could support fifteen students later. That was a big part of the traction for me, that this is something we can take the next ten or fifteen years and build into something much larger than when it started.”
Students in the MSU Wind Symphony are among the beneficiaries of the new Brian and Marianne Breneman Endowed Scholarship in Music, an endowed fund that will grow over time.
The Breneman’s pledged generous cash gifts over five years to establish the scholarship as an endowment. This means that a portion of the interest earned by the fund supports current students while the remainder returns to the principal. This, along with additional cash contributions, helps the endowment grow exponentially over time, helping more and more students in the future.
“I really like the idea of helping while we can see it. We can interact with the student or students and hopefully follow what they’re doing,” Marianne said. “It’s hard to be a student who’s working, practicing, and meeting all the demands. Anything we can do to ease the financial burden and to have people not have as many student loans, that’s important to me, that they’re not saddled with that on top of trying to start a career.”
Marianne first noticed the “new guy” Brian during band rehearsal. She, a clarinetist, and he, a trumpeter, started dating, graduated, got married, and still engage in music activities.
With a strong Spartan work ethic, the couple knows a thing or two about building a career. Since graduating from MSU in 1992, Marianne, a clarinetist, has performed steadily including ten years with the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra and a chamber ensemble called Conundrum. In addition to private lessons, she has taught at universities in Ohio, Kentucky, and Georgia.
She continued her education, studying with Ted Oien from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra through Wayne State University, earning an Artist Diploma from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and completing an Arts Management certificate from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. During the pandemic, Marianne shifted her focus and became a certified life coach for teens and young adults, and she now has a thriving practice called “Mindful Health and Harmony.”
Brian, a trumpeter, began a career in software while in school at MSU. He worked for local music store Meridian Winds and began work as a software developer at a custom-software firm in East Lansing immediately after leaving MSU in 1993. After years of work as an independent consultant from 1998 to 2013, he became a partner and Chief Technology Officer of Eagle Software Corporation, a company he describes as “a boutique venture-technology company that today operates primarily in the healthcare software space through our subsidiary, CliniCentric, LLC.”
Orchestra students at MSU will also benefit from the Breneman Scholarship. Marianne and Brian feel strongly that helping students avoid the stress of working multiple jobs to pay for tuition is key to their success.
In addition to their successful careers, Brian and Marianne created and operated two coffee houses in Cincinnati, and Brian worked for a venture-backed financial services startup in Atlanta. Brian eventually returned to the trumpet, and today he plays solo cornet with the Triangle Brass Band, trumpet with the Oak City Brass Quintet, and freelances actively.
With all their hard work and success, the Brenemans see MSU and the College of Music as part of their core. Theirs is a classic Spartan love story. Girl sees the new boy across the rehearsal room, nudges her friend to ask who the cute new guy is, and later they meet and fall in love over wind symphony repertoire. You know, typical stuff for music majors.
“Our experience as music students at MSU was great. In addition to a first-class music education, the College of Music was a family,” Brian said. “We’re still in touch with friends and faculty from MSU all the time, and when we return to campus it’s always like coming home.”
The Breneman Endowed Scholarship is their way of saying thank you, but it also provides a real opportunity for Music students to enjoy their time at MSU, grow as musicians and people, and do so without financial stress.
“The College of Music is a very special place to us, and we were looking to create something that would help the College fulfill its mission and that would not be a one-time gift,” Brian explained. “An endowed scholarship was the perfect choice for us because it will continue to give long after we are gone, and through long-term giving, we can continue to increase its size and impact for years to come.”
