Michael T. Roberts '00

For me as a musician, Dartmouth was a place where anything was possible. I entered as an electric guitar player, thrilled to find a home playing jazz with the Barbary Coast and rocking fraternity parties on the weekends with a great band. I graduated as a music major who had discovered a love of Mozart, cultivated skills on the classical guitar with a great teacher, and spent my entire senior year composing and producing my own opera. It helped to have phenomenal professors like Bill Summers, who quickly spotted my interest in writing musical theater and, in literally my first week at Dartmouth, began encouraging me to pursue a Senior Fellowship, eventually mentoring me through the entire process. It was a life-changing experience that could not have happened anywhere else. What I learned as a music major at Dartmouth has enriched every day of my life since—through graduate school at the San Francisco Conservatory, and now in my career as a guitarist, composer, and teacher.