Baumgartner named Oberlin's Watson Fellow

Most people anticipate the arrival of the new millennium because it heralds the future, but double-degree senior Nicholas Baumgartner looks forward to it because of its important link to the past.

July 28, 2000 marks the 250th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach's death, and Baumgartner will be in western Europe that day to honor the famous composer. The tribute won't end there: Baumgartner plans to spend an entire year abroad working on a project he calls "European Bach Interpretations at the Close of the Millennium."

Baumgartner recently received a 1999 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a grant providing $22,000 to 60 graduating students nationwide who intend to pursue a year-long project outside the United States. Baumgartner will apply his grant toward travel expenses for his year in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

"I'll be interviewing performers and musicologists who specialize in J.S. Bach to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of western European Bach interpretations in the year 2000," Baumgartner said.

Baumgartner said he plans to interview as many as 50 performers and musicologists in four countries, as well as attending concerts and classes, in order to study the European movement toward establishing a new approach to interpreting Bach.

Baumgartner's project is a continuation of research he conducted while in Germany in 1997. With the help of a Presser Foundation Grant, Baumgartner studied the links between the Lutheran church and Bach's music, as well as the effect of the post-World War II division of Germany on Bach interpretation. He subsequently wrote a paper entitled "Currents in Bach Interpretation in Contemporary Germany," which will be published in Bach, a journal by Baldwin Wallace College's Riemenschneider Bach Institute.

Thanks to the Watson Fellowship, Baumgartner will devote the next year to studying issues for non-German interpreters as well.

Baumgartner said he was ecstatic about the opportunity the Watson Fellowship will provide. "It's been a dream of mine for years to meet some of the musicians with whom I've established contact. It will be a year of continuous exposure to the contemporary world of J.S. Bach and his early music," he said.

Assistant Professor of Expository Writing Laurie McMillin, who served on the committee selecting Oberlin's finalists for the Fellowship, said she felt Baumgartner was very deserving of the fellowship.

"What I really like about Nicholas is the fact that he's a double-degree student, so he combines the best of both sides of the College. His project also expresses those two sides," she said.

Every year 49 American liberal arts colleges pick four finalists from their applicant pool and send their profiles to the Watson Foundation. The foundation then chooses 60 Fellows based on the significance of their proposed projects.

"We try to find a close fit between the project and the person," McMillin said. "We were looking for somebody whose life has led up to this project. But the main thing we looked for was the candidate's passion for the project and the feasibility of the project itself."

McMillin, a former Watson Fellow herself, said she encourages this year's juniors to start thinking now about applying for the fellowship next semester.

"It's unique because you decide where to go and when," said McMillin, who in 1984 traveled to India and China to study contemporary Buddhism thanks to a Watson Fellowship.

Oberlin has consistently produced at least one Watson Fellow annually since the grant was established in 1969, McMillin said. Baumgartner was Oberlin's only Watson Fellow this year.