Dear Friends,
Quick note before we get started: next Sunday, April 26th, I'll be performing Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel's Das Jahr on the Pleyel Series at the Scarab Club in Detroit. If you're in the area, I would love to see you there! [Ticket information here.]
Anyway, today I have a bit of news to share: next year, during the full 2026-27 academic year, I'll be taking a sabbatical from Butler University.
As this academic year winds down (we have just 1 week of classes left), I find myself reflecting on the fact that the current intensity of activity is about to die down for a good long while. Yesterday I had my final student recital, and my next one will be.... in the fall of 2027? It sounds so far away that my brain can't quite compute!
A dear colleague who recently retired told me at his retirement reception that he had never taken a sabbatical, in more than 40 years of university teaching. He just never felt like he wanted one. He told me that he would feel untethered without the structure of a semester to organize his life around.
He said to me, "Kate, this is the best job in the world! We get to make music and talk about music all day! Who needs a break from that?"
I get it! I've been at Butler for 21 years. I love my students and I feel a huge responsibility toward them, and I'm genuinely invested in their progress. Also, the rhythm of the academic calendar is so baked into how I organize my life that I honestly couldn't tell you what a year without it will feel like.
And yet....
It's possible to have your days so full of good things that you lose the capacity to think clearly about any of them. The scheduling, teaching, mentoring, planning, committee-ing and problem-solving fill most of my waking hours, and the slower, more contemplative kind of thinking (not to mention my practice!) tends to get squeezed out entirely.
That kind of thinking requires white space, and a full time academic life, however rewarding, does not leave much of it. A sabbatical is a chance to reset your relationship with your work by stepping far enough back from it to actually see it more clearly.
So, I applied for the full-year sabbatical, and my dean and provost generously approved it. (Contrary to what many people might assume, a sabbatical is not automatically granted; it requires coming up with a significant project, writing it up like a grant proposal, and submitting it to the administration.)
My main sabbatical project is recording and performing Das Jahr, with a CD release planned for October and performances planned throughout the year. I'll also be playing Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen at the American Liszt Society conference and the Tchaikovsky Piano Trio with some young new colleagues on the Duckwall series here at Butler. I'll be teaching and performing in Hungary at the Chroma International Music Festival in July, and at Butler Piano Camp in June. The newsletter and YouTube channel will continue throughout the year, so you'll still hear from me every week!
But I'm also hoping to do things that don't have a deadline attached to them. Things like: dig in the garden. Cook fussy things that take a long time. Finally learn how to make sourdough bread (why oh why does my starter keep dying?). Take some longer hikes. Reconnect with the pleasure of practicing for its own sake.
I understand that having a sabbatical from my work is a rare privilege few will have the opportunity to enjoy. But here's the question I'd ask you: how can you give your musical life a little room to breathe? A small pocket of white space with no agenda, no deadline, no goal other than following your curiosity wherever it goes? This could be a piece you've always wanted to learn, a composer you've never explored, an opera you've never watched, or an afternoon where the focus is on "play" rather than "progress." What would that look like for you? Write back and let me know: I read every email, even if I can't reply to everyone.
π Happy practicing,
Kate
PS: We still have spaces available at Butler Piano Camp this June. It's a residential week on Butler's campus here in Indianapolis for students at all levels in grades 7 through 12, from June 15-19. A week of lessons, practice, seminars, and time spent with other serious young pianists. If you know a young pianist who loves the piano, I'd love to work with them! [Details and registration here.]