a tempo summer2007

David Wegehaupt (’07) Wins Fulbright Scholarship

David Wegehaupt ’07

(This article originally appeared in The Monitor, the University’s weekly online news bulletin.)

Wegehaupt came to BGSU to study with Dr. John Sampen, Distinguished Artist Professor. With Wegehaupt’s Fulbright Full Scholarship in Paris, he will study with master teacher Jean-Michel Goury. Wegehaupt already has fairly extensive experience performing overseas, and returned from a trip to Greece, where he played with his group, the Cosmos Saxophone Quartet, just in time for graduation.

“Last November, I went to Dinant, Belgium, for two weeks and participated in one of the biggest saxophone competitions in the world, the International Adolphe Sax Competition, and I was the only American to advance to the semifinal round,” Wegehaupt said. He counts this and receiving the Fulbright award as his two greatest accomplishments.

To study in Paris is especially meaningful for a saxophonist, he said, because that is where the saxophone was invented and where the first conservatory class in saxophone was held, in the early 1900s. It is also an important center for contemporary art music, which is what Wegehaupt is particularly interested in.

“Twentieth- and 21st-century contemporary music is what I am most involved in,” he said. “I want to keep moving music forward. Changing, evolving and progressing is what is most important to me.”

“David is a tremendous talent—a 4.0 student who learns so quickly and loves music and the arts,” Sampen said. “He has been planning and preparing for this Fulbright opportunity for over two years. In our saxophone lessons we have frequently discussed his interest and need to study in France. As a result, he has undertaken the appropriate preparatory steps in learning French, consulting with other Fulbright winners, undertaking preliminary trips abroad, contacting major world-class saxophonists and preparing professional-quality audition solos and recordings.”

An important part of the preparation involved writing two essays. Wegehaupt said Regan was a “really great editor of my essays. We must have gone through 20 drafts of each essay, and she helped me write the best essays I could write.”

Once in Paris, in addition to his classes with Goury, he said he is most looking forward to having virtually uninterrupted practice time. “I plan to spend about eight hours a day playing and practicing,” he said. As a student at BGSU, he was pressed to get in four hours a day when combined with school and his other activities, which included being a radio announcer and music director for WBGU-FM and a recording engineer. “David is frequently requested for producing recitals and recordings,” Sampen said. This summer, in preparation for going to Paris, he plans to study French, give saxophone lessons and spend as much time as possible practicing. “I want to be playing my best when I get there,” he said.

“What I particularly enjoy about David is his terrific energy and his consuming interest in playing the saxophone,” Sampen added. “He has wonderful musical taste (particularly in new music) and a natural affinity for expressing himself through the medium of sound.”