Quo Vadis

Issue date: 5/6/09 Section: Campus and Community

Flat trumpet player Jeffrey Leidner is the 2009 recipient of the Social Sciences and Humanities Division Faculty Award for Most Promising Musician.
Even though he is only 20 yearsold, Leidner's achievements do not end there. On April 15, Leidner was inducted into Phi Theta Kappa, the International Honor Society of two-year colleges. The fruit of his academic and artistic success was also Leidner's acceptance into the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.
According to Margaret Frantz, director of arts marketing and recruitment for the Mason Gross School of the Arts, only 80 out of more than 660 transfer applicants were accepted into the school for the 2009-2010 academic year.
A resident of Iselin, Leidner started playing around his fourth grade in elementary school, having picked the trumpet since he found it easier to play because it has only three valves. "…just push three things and sounds come out," said Leidner.
Leidner continued to play all through middle school and high school in "all the bands that they had." He first became interested in music after his brother started playing the trumpet and going on trips. Now Leidner is looking forward to graduating in August after the completion of his associate degree in fine arts.
"Whenever I am home, I am practicing," said Leidner. He usually rehearses between two to four hours a day, making music his life.
When asked about the future, Leidner is not sure. "Right now it is kind of nebulous," said Leidner. Depending on how good he becomes, he wants to work as a music professor or a professional performer. "If I get good enough maybe [I'll join] the New York Philharmonic. That would be great, but teaching would not be bad at all."
His professor at MCC, Mary Ann Bogar describes him as a very respectful, polite individual. She said that she is sorry to lose him now that he is transferring, however he is growing up and important things await in his future.
"He is one of the most talented students I have ever known, and is one of the few, in all the years I have taught at MCC, who has been accepted into the music program at the Mason Gross School at Rutgers. He is very dedicated and that shows in his level of playing," said Bogar.
Leidner says his success came thanks to the effort by his dedicated professors, especially his teacher at JFK Memorial High School in Iselin, Mr. Kenneth Hunt; his private instructor, Tom Boulton; and his current one at MCC, professor Mary Ann Bogar. "She's been a great help," said Leidner. He also said that he would never have made it without his mother, Judy, who has always supported him since he began playing.
As a New Jersey Stars program student, Leidner says it was "totally" worth to have come to MCC for his college education.


Picture by Federico Zanatta
Caption: 2009 Social Sciences & Humanities Division Faculty Award for Most Promising Musician winner, Jeffrey Leidner rehearses one of his musical pieces at the music room located in Edison Hall room 166.

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