A wide variety of performance opportunities await our students each year, with orchestras, bands, choirs and opera, jazz nonets and combos, small ensembles, and more.
A variety of programs and initiatives operate continuously or annually to enhance learning experiences and help students prepare for their future in music.
The MSU College of Music supports and challenges students, values innovation and creativity, and helps every community member achieve professional excellence.
Jazz Studies senior Sam Gucwa is a Spring 2025 graduate with a Bachelor of Music degree in saxophone performance. Active in several ensembles and entrepreneurial projects since her arrival at the MSU College of Music, Sam took an interest, researched it thoroughly, created a presentation as a finalist in the annual College of Music Running Start Competition, and then took it to a whole new level. When MSU announced it would host a TEDx event, Sam went for it. While she said she was surprised to get the invitation to present her work, those who know her and supported her at the talk were not surprised at all. Sam is an excellent example of a well-rounded music major, dedicated not only to perfecting her craft but to growing as a musician and as a person ready to take on the professional world. We hope you enjoy her insightful presentation, filmed in 2024 on campus, and her story about how it all came together.
The process
“I dug into all this research about six women who dated Miles Davis, and I wrote the Running Start grant proposal. One cool thing that they do when you’re pitching your grant is you meet not only with our Running Start staff, but you also team up with the Burgess Institute for Entrepreneurship, which is a College of Business program that’s designed to help people doing startups. For us as musicians, if you’re starting an LLC for the first time or if you want your own record label, you can actually sign up with Burgess and get all of the extra legal help, like, ‘here’s how you open a business bank account.’ So, they helped me with my pitch deck. Then I was writing my five minute Running Start Shark Tank-style pitch, and I scrolled on Instagram and saw a call for applications for the MSU TEDx conference. And I was like, ‘you know, I’ve done so much research on this, I might as well.’ I didn’t think I was going to get it. I spent maybe 15 minutes on the application, but I used all of the application materials I wrote for Running Start. The Running Start Competition was scheduled for a Sunday, and on Thursday I get a call from TEDx MSU saying, ‘we want to interview you. You made it to the final round.’ I was like, oh, I wasn’t expecting that! The interview goes really well, and then actually the morning of the Running Start Competition I got the email saying I got into the TEDx talk. I found out later that there were over 80 applications and only eight people got accepted, so that was really cool to see that I could take all of my work from Running Start and transition it into something else.” – Sam Gucwa
