Studying at Westminster Choir College
Matt Brady is a graduate student in choral conducting who came to Princeton to learn more about music.
He is also an Iraq War veteran whose other job is to prepare the next generation of soldiers as an infantry drill sergeant. Somehow, those two worlds are not so different.
”Being a drill sergeant, I’m a teacher, that just fits me. And when I’m in front of a classroom, I’m somebody posing questions and opening doors and guiding,” said Mr. Brady on a recent afternoon at Westminster Choir College
”Whether it’s asking a solider to do their best in order to achieve on the battlefield or if it’s asking a singer or a student to do their best in the classroom, I look at them as the same goal that you’re trying to be the very best at what you do,” he said.
Wearing a brown sports coat without a tie, Mr. Brady, 32, is seated at a table inside the Schiede student center. On a campus where the sound of singing comes out of the windows of classrooms, he is an anomaly as a veteran.
”There aren’t lots of us here,” said Mr. Brady in calling Westminster a great fit for him.
One of his conducting teachers spoke of Mr. Brady as a great musician who brought a different kind of maturity to the classroom.
”I was not aware of his military service when I had him,” said professor James Jordan. “I became aware of it afterward. You kind of sensed that he lived a little more life than the rest.”
Mr. Brady grew up in Ann Arbor, Mich., in a family of six children. Both parents were teachers. He recalled how hard they had to work “for the living that they made.”
His mother had the children take private music lessons. Where his four older siblings took piano, Mr. Brady was drawn to the violin starting when he was in kindergarten. Later, he sung in the school choir all four years at Pioneer High School in Michigan.
”It’s kind of where my vocal training began,” he said. “Music had been the most enriching experience for me.”
When he was young, he had dreams of playing professional soccer in Europe. A freak injury to the medial collateral ligament in his right leg ended that — but also allowed him to focus more on music.
”I didn’t need to run to sing,” he said. “I got more interested in music and found more talents and fulfillment there.”
By the time it came for him to decide what he would study at college, he settled on music education after realizing that at “heart I was a teacher.” At Western Michigan University, he came across Joe Miller, the current music director at Westminster. Their paths would cross again.
Then 9/11 happened as his sophomore year was starting. Moved to want to do something, he enlisted in Army Reserves and went to basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. the following summer.
“We call it Fort Lost in the Woods,” he said jokingly.
He interrupted his undergraduate education, having been activated in his junior year. He would serve consecutive six-month tours in Iraq starting in October 2003. Then a private, he was assigned to a transportation company. Most of his time was spent in the city of Mosul, in the northern part of the country. Like any solider, there were close calls.
”We lost some guys. Just like anybody that was over there, . . . there were constant mortars,” he said.
He recalled singing Christmas carols on Christmas Eve for his fellow soldiers over the radio as he would be sitting in a gun hatch. Carnegie Hall it was not.
He got home in November 2004, went back to college and graduated. He taught for a few years, but then wanted to go to graduate school.
Mr. Brady came to Westminster because of Mr. Miller, “a dynamic person” who had a big impact on him.
“If you get to watch him work just for one rehearsal, you’ll understand why,” Mr. Brady said. “Dr. Miller is a shining example of how to teach.”
Mr. Brady’s time at Westminster is winding down, right before he heads for more graduate school later this year. After graduation, Mr. Brady plans to attend the University of North Texas to obtain his doctorate in conducting.
”So (in) three years, I’ll be, hopefully baring anything drastic, ready to teach college,” he said.

