World class music ‘every night of the week’
The Musikverein in Vienna, considered one of the finest concert halls in the world.
Nicholas Martucci is majoring in computer science. But when he saw he could gain credits for his minors in music and audio and music engineering while studying abroad, he jumped at the opportunity.
The obvious destination: Vienna, the renowned “capital of classical music.”
“The best thing about living in Vienna was that every night of the week there was some world-class musical performance going on with standing room tickets available for 6 Euros or less,” Martucci says. “Also, since Vienna is located right in the center of Europe, a large part of the continent is within an overnight train ride.”
As a result, Martucci was able to visit 13 other European cities during his spring 2017 semester abroad, including Salzburg, Bratislava, Venice, Florence, Prague, Munich, Berlin, and Barcelona.
“Skiing in the Austrian Alps was absolutely gorgeous and unlike anything I had experienced before,” Martucci says.
He visited Venice during the carnival there, “wandering through the crowded narrow streets, passing dozens of tacky shops with cheap carnival masks and souvenirs, until we finally stumbled open a small shop with an old man making and painting elaborate masks by hand.”
Martucci and his companions bought masks that the man then signed for them.
“It wasn’t until some time after that we looked him up and realized he and his brother were the oldest and most famous mask makers in Venice. That was pretty special.”
The program Martucci participated in is offered through IES, which is “very clear about which forms were due at what time,” he says. That helped make the entire process applying to study abroad “fairly straightforward.” Both his IES advisor and University study abroad advisor Heidi Kozireski “made it easy for my credits to transfer to Rochester.”
Martucci completed his music minor by getting credit for MUR 134 (Intro to Music History). “IES had also just built a brand new recording studio and I was able to get credit for AME 191 (The Art and Technology of Recording) for my audio and music engineering minor,” Martucci says.
He had his normal UR tuition and financial aid package while he was abroad, and his work study money was converted to grant money. IES gave him an additional $1,000 grant. “This definitely helped offset the cost of food and travel,” Martucci says.
“While study abroad has its ups and downs like anything else, there is never going to be another time in your life where you can take classes abroad and have access to an extensive support group of study abroad program managers as well as students who are in the same position as you,” Martucci says. “These resources take some of the stress out of being immersed in a foreign culture while still allowing you to grow as a person.”
“Skiing in the Austrian Alps was absolutely gorgeous and unlike anything I had experienced before,” Martucci says.