If the path you want to take in life doesn’t exist — well, make a new path.
That’s easier said than done, of course. Sometimes we don’t have the knowledge, stamina or support it would take to carve a new way forward. But for graduate students in music, it can sometimes be a necessity. The musical landscape is constantly changing — music teachers are expected to be more versatile than in the past, streaming services have altered career paths for performers, and full-time jobs in orchestras and opera companies are mostly gone. In general, today’s environment favors flexibility and entrepreneurship over virtuosic skills.
Julie Hubbert, recipient of the Michael J. Mungo Graduate Teaching Award, is particularly adept at teaching in this context. That’s because her interests have always extended beyond music to include film, film music and the social, cultural and economic contexts in which music and film are created. With this broad outlook as a starting point, she helps students understand the wider context in which they operate and to develop the mindset they’ll need to thrive.
“They might have to conduct a choir, teach a theory class, teach a history class, and do administrative work on top of that,” Hubbert says of recent graduates landing their first job. “So, I really try to pull back the curtains and normalize that and model that for them.”
For Hubbert, a professor of music, music history, and film & music studies, everything fell into place when she landed at the University of South Carolina in 1999.
“When I came out of graduate school, I had done my Ph.D. work on the classical symphony — specifically, two Austrian composers, Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg. But my mom was a film buff, and we watched a lot of movies. Film music just really wasn’t a research topic in graduate school 25 or 30 years ago. But when I came here and began to teach, I immediately fell in with the people in the film studies department.”
“I try to create a culture where we talk to one another and share ideas and we share problems.”
That connection has defined Hubbert’s time at the university, as well as her approach to teaching. Grounded in classical music history, she expands out from there and finds connections between different fields of study. Last year, she served as interim director of the Film and Media Studies program.
“This is the beauty of a university where things aren’t really siloed,” she says. “I think that’s why I’m here. That’s why I’ve stayed — because it’s easy to do a lot of interdisciplinary work. I’ve noticed that it’s been difficult for colleagues at other universities sometimes to do the cross-disciplinary work if departments are really isolated. But it’s not here.”
Hubbert’s wide-ranging scholarly interests drive her interdisciplinary work — and this openness to multiple fields becomes a key benefit for her students. She has dedicated herself to expanding and deepening the learning opportunities available to graduate students, so that they too can build meaningful careers in music.
“I’ve taught a class on Wagner where we put comparative literature students with music students. We’re modeling for them — don’t be afraid of the other side. Go talk to people who have other specialties.”
More broadly, Hubbert has systematically pushed to broaden students’ perspectives. One of the roles of music graduate students is to teach music appreciation courses to non-music majors. When Hubbert came to USC, the only choice students had was Introduction to Western Classical Music. She pushed for numerous additions, including film music, video game music, world music, rock and Broadway musicals. The additions not only gave students taking the courses more options — they also made the graduate students teaching them more competitive in the job market.
Decades ago, music students might go into a job with a symphony orchestra or an opera company. Today, they’re more likely to piece together a career that is part performance, part teaching. And even if they are taking an academic teaching job, the demands are more diverse than they might have been in the past.
“We all have different portions of our jobs — we do research, we do teaching, we do service,” Hubbert says of her fellow faculty members. So, for her graduate students, it’s all about helping them understand that there are “a lot of hats you have to wear” to build a career in music.
But students don’t have to do it alone. Hubbert pulls her students together and works on skills like job interviews, developing syllabi and practicing lectures.
“I try to create a culture where we talk to one another and share ideas and we share problems,” she says.
It’s especially gratifying when she hears from a former student — or an employer — about how well USC students are prepared to thrive.
Hubbert recalls a phone call years ago from a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. The college had hired two piano instructors from a prestigious music conservatory, but they weren’t meeting the school’s needs.
“‘They’re OK as piano teachers, but they can’t do anything else,’” she recalls hearing from the college. “And I’m like, ‘Well, have I got the student for you.’”