Arlene was the lab teacher for 550 and 560 my freshman year, and that’s how I met her. I spent a lot of time with her for the next several semester, first taking her advanced musicianship course, then TA’ing it the next spring (this was one of my favorite times, as weekly meetings with her could always spiral out into friendly chats and catching up. I miss her). I could talk about how she changed my life for thousands of words, but I feel that her impact will only continue to grow exponentially as I grow alongside the memories I have of her, so instead I would like to give a short anecdote.
It was the spring of 2019, and Arlene postponed the 560 lab final by one day because her dog, Theta I believe, had passed away. It seemed ludicrous to me that she would be hosting an exam so soon after a loss, but then again, I understood because of how condensed final season is.
I wasn’t the last person in the day, but it was close enough that I decided to camp out after my exam, waiting outside her office to offer my quick condolences. The one problem: I’d gotten a potted plant for her (something about a living thing seemed apt after hearing what had happened), and as it turns out there is no such thing as quick condolences when you are attempting to impart a gift.
After the last exam finished, Arlene noticed me, accepted the plant and the condolences, and then kept up the conversation. It was a long, impromptu back and forth, where we asked each other questions and talked about dogs, family, music–
And here’s what I learned from one simple conversation:
1) Her mother was improving her piano skills, and she had many of the same opinions as Arlene’s college students (i.e. that certain keys simply had too many sharps or flats, and weren’t meant to be read or played).
2) Her dogs had this bad tendency to eat the wood around the bottom of the piano legs–beautiful pianos full of teeth marks! She’d had to wrap the bottom of the legs to stop this from happening (and she was relieved to hear that my dogs have no such inclinations).
Alongside remembering how wonderful and inspiring Arlene was, I want to pass on these little fun facts because she was one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, and she deserves to be commemorated to every extent possible.
Marijke Perry ’22