Walter Freeman, Floater
During my freshman year as an undergraduate, I saw another student with a Messiah score under her arm, and inquired. The next week I wandered into Bonnie Sneed’s office to audition for her choir, and so began my lifelong passion for serious choral music. While my undergraduate degree may say something else on it, most of the memorable experiences from my undergraduate years involve the UAH choirs, and it’s in the concert hall, the rehearsal room, and on tour that I got my actual education and met my most enduring friends.
Sixteen years later, I’m still at it; since then, I’ve earned a doctorate in physics from the University of Arizona, led a few choirs, and sung in many as my academic career has carried me around the country. Currently, I’m a new physics professor at Syracuse University, focused on computational physics and on teaching; my students usually discover that acoustics and the physics of music will worm their way into any class that I’m teaching, since most of physics involves waves and resonance. I sing with NAVE, the Syracuse Vocal Ensemble, the Symphoria Pops Chorus, and the Syracuse Oratorio Society.
When I’m not teaching students or singing, I enjoy the outdoors, nature photography, stories and storytelling, and wishing the Syracuse weather would make up its mind.
Along with James Lawlor and Chris Donley, I am the most confused member of NAVE as to my voice part; I have sung everything from bass 2 to tenor 1.
