Why Loyola?

Robyn Reso

Robyn Reso credits her experience at Loyola with setting her up for a successful future.

By: Robyn Reso

When the Loyola Chorale came on tour to Houston in the spring of 1973, our choir of students from both St. Agnes Academy and Strake Jesuit High School were asked to provide accommodations for its members. At the time, I was a high school junior, thinking of majoring in foreign affairs, political affairs, journalism or music. Two Loyola Chorale women stayed with us. My mother later told me that when I heard them warming up their voices I told her, "Mom, that's what I want to do!"

I had begun studying piano at age 8 and sung in school and church choirs throughout my education. When it became clear that I had a good solo voice, I began to take voice lessons at age 16. After much consideration, I chose to major in voice performance at Loyola.

I was originally from New Orleans, so I was familiar with the campus. My dad drove me to Loyola at the beginning of my freshman year. That week, there were auditions for the Loyola Chorale, the most select choral group on campus. I auditioned, and afterwards was invited to go out for a beer with Dr. Larry Wyatt, the conductor, and with other auditionees. I suddenly felt so grown up! (The drinking age at that time was 18.)

My four-year participation in the Loyola Chorale provides some of my strongest and dearest memories of Loyola. If I could attribute my success at Loyola to one thing, it would be to my experience of singing in the Chorale. Loyola was Dr. Wyatt's first tenure-track position; he was a young, exuberant, fun-loving and extremely gifted choral conductor who had a true gift for building bonds of friendship and community, as well as outstanding performance, in the Chorale. Dr. Wyatt brought famous conductors to Loyola, people like Fiora Contino to direct Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, and Robert Paige to conduct Bach's St John Passion, in which I was the alto soloist. These were peak experiences in my early musical life.

Because of the Chorale, I was the first in my family to go to Europe, going on tour during the winter break of my freshman year and again after my graduation in 1978. There are many others who have the same fond and deeply respectful memories of Dr. Wyatt, who is now in his last year of teaching at the University of South Carolina. Chorale members from the whole of Dr. Wyatt's time at Loyola gathered to prepare and sing a concert in 2009 and formed the Facebook group, "I Sang in the Loyola Chorale with Dr. Larry Wyatt."

Both European tours were directed by Fr. C.J. McNaspy, SJ, who shepherded and guided us in Europe, along with the local Jesuits in France, Germany and Italy who befriended and fed us! C.J., as we all called him, played a vital role in the music school, teaching a religious studies course called "Music as Value," in which he guided us through the history of Catholic theology along with a large portion of Western cultural history and heritage, visually enriched by the wonderful slides he took on his many travels. He helped us all develop a knowledge and love of Western culture and visual art, as well as music.

Small groups of us were invited to his office in the evenings to listen to recordings of classical music. He guided us through the great works and those of us in these groups felt very privileged. C.J. was one of the best professors I have ever encountered, both at Loyola and throughout my master's and doctoral studies.

Dr. Elise Cambon, professor of music history and director of the Collegium Musicum, Loyola's early music group, was another who inspired me. Under her influence, I discovered my love and aptitude for Baroque and Renaissance music. These became my specialty as a performer.

I had many exciting musical experiences at Loyola. Since it was a small music school with no graduate program at that time, I was able to do much more actual performing than would have been possible for an undergraduate in most other music schools. One only learns to be a performer by performing and Loyola gave me many opportunities for growth. I had many peak performing experiences that inspired me to continue my studies and gain success as a singer.

In Loyola's atmosphere, we were never told we could not perform what we wanted to or that we were not capable of undertaking ambitious projects. Some of us formed the New Orleans Collegium Musicum, an early music group founded and directed by a late classmate, Albert LeDoux. We gathered some singers and instrumentalists and toured South Louisiana and gave concerts in New Orleans, singing many works, including Bach cantatas and Albert's own edition of the Tenebrae Responses from Holy Week by Gesualdo, written because there was no published edition in modern keys at that time. Nor was there music writing software: Albert had to write it out by hand. I still have my copy.

One of the things I loved about Loyola was the Jesuit presence. As a student, I was able to go to Mass any day along with faculty members as one community. We were offered many retreats and other opportunities for spiritual growth. I remember going on a retreat at Grand Coteau, the Jesuit novitiate, and discovered I was the only woman there!

It was the 1970s and the horizons of the Church were rising and widening and I felt it in the quality of community among and between faculty and students. I have always said that no one could complete a degree at Loyola without learning to think about the deeper matters of life. This Jesuit spiritual training was one of the things that led me, a year after graduation, to enter the Benedictine monastery of Stanbrook Abbey in England, where I was a novice for three years. Fr. C.J. McNaspy wrote one of my required entry letters of recommendation. I eventually left Stanbrook to pursue my musical calling.

I earned a master's degree in voice performance from the University of Houston and studied for a Ph.D. in musicology at Washington University in St. Louis, but I returned to my love of singing and studied for my Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Houston. Upon the foundations of my Loyola education, I have built a good singing career and sung all around the country. I taught voice and related music subjects at the college level for many years and several of my students have received doctorates and are teaching at colleges and universities themselves. Others are having successful performing careers and teaching privately.

Upon my father's death, my mother created the Reso Foundation. Recently my sister Renée and I created scholarships in perpetuity with funds from the Reso Foundation at my father's alma maters: LSU and Brother Martin High School in New Orleans. This made me think about my own legacy and reflect on my experience at Loyola. I decided to endow a scholarship in classical music performance at Loyola in my will, in thanksgiving for all I received at Loyola.

As a college educator in music, I know how very difficult it can be for talented students to succeed, even if they have the resources necessary for college and further professional training. I had very talented friends at Loyola who finished their degrees with great financial hardship, or who could not finish them at all. My father deeply believed in the transformative power of education—and I do as well.

I feel greatly privileged to have been able to endow a scholarship fund in classical music performance in perpetuity. My father worked his way through the petroleum engineering program at LSU and I was born between his junior and senior years there. He rose to become president of Exxon International. It makes me very happy to know that the money my father earned will create its own legacy through me and help transform the lives of aspiring young classical musicians who otherwise would not be financially able to attend Loyola. I wish them all success!

Loyola was a perfect fit for me and I have always been very grateful for my Loyola education in music, as well as the Jesuit presence and guidance. The Latin root word of the word "education" means to lead, to guide and to call forth. During my Loyola years, I experienced all of these meanings to a full degree. I was extremely well educated in music, grounded in Western cultural history and heritage, spiritually nurtured in philosophy and the Catholic spiritual tradition, and reaped the benefits of studying in a small College of Music at a small university.

It is my hope that others who had an outstanding education and experience at Loyola will also decide to remember Loyola by leaving a legacy in thanksgiving so that young people now will have the ability to take advantage of all Loyola has to offer: A deep, broad and inspiring education that will call forth the best in them, spiritually ground them, educate them extraordinarily well and prepare them for a life of success, service and joy.

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To learn more about making a gift to support Loyola's future, like Robyn did, contact Kevin Maney at kmaney@loyno.edu or 504-861-5442.

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