By Morgan Jackson, Features Editor
Dr. Abigail Mace is new to Bison Hill. She joined the faculty for the Fall semester of 2018.
Dr. Mace is an assistant professor of music and is currently the director of OBU’s Music Preparatory Department.
“I teach applied lessons, piano ensemble, piano accompanying and harpsichord,” Mace said.
Mace has a love for music, especially piano and harpsichord. Mace attended Vanderbilt University as an undergraduate to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance.
She later attended the University of Texas at Austin to complete both a masters and doctoral program in Piano Performance.
“One thing that drew me to OBU was the fact that I had a similar background in my undergraduate experience,” Mace said. “The combination of strong academics and a strong music program was so similar to my undergraduate experience, and that drew me to OBU.”
Mace received the honor of being a recipient of a Full-bright Fellowship.
This program allows for recipients to study at an international school of their choice.
Mace chose to study at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in Holland during 2010 and 2011.
Mace said that the biggest challenge in this process was finding someone to sponsor her while living in the states.
“Through God’s grace, miraculously, it worked out,” Mace said. “I got a sponsor over at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. The reason why I chose that particular school was that it has the largest early music program in the world. It has some of the top names in the whole field of Historically Informed Performance”
Historically informed performance, also known as HIP, seeks to know how music would have been performed in the time period that it was written or performed in, so that it can be performed in a manner truer to its time period in modern settings.
“[It] was a movement that started in the 1960s, that started to really flourish in the 1970s,” Mace said.
Mace is passionate about this area of study, and this movement. She said is a major reason why she chose to study at the Royal Conservatory of the Hauge.
“So, there’s this whole movement trying to perform music accurately, how the composers would have heard it, how the people of the time would have heard it,” Mace said. “My Fullbright Fellowship was to go and study harpsichord at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, with Jacques Ogg. He was my primary harpsichord instructor there.”
This field of music is still very popular today with many people in the community who love and care about the historical context surrounding classical music.
“It’s still a very popular area with many CDs of harpsichord music being put out all the time,” Mace said. “A lot of orchestral music is being recorded on historical instruments with gut strings, which has a totally different sound than the steel strings that we have nowadays. They don’t project as much, but they have a warm, rich tone to them.”
Mace believes that God had a major part in her travel and study to Holland and other European countries.
“It was amazing to be over in another country, living there, studying with these people that I’ve heard about,” Mace said. “It was just incredible. God did a lot of amazing things in my life during that time, too. He gave me a wonderful church home, Trinity International Baptist Church…I got travel to Italy, Germany, Belgium, and of course, all throughout Holland while I was over there in Europe.”
Mace is grateful and happy to be part of the Oklahoma Baptist University community.
thebisonnews.com 
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