Holy Cross Student Receives DAAD German Scholarship

WORCESTER, Mass. – Victoria Rodrigue ’07, a music major with a German minor from Bolton, Conn., will be spending her summer in Germany after receiving a scholarship from the DAAD, the German Government’s Academic Exchange Service. She is among only 50 students nationwide to receive the scholarship.

Rodrigue will be attending a program titled Language and Music Culture in Germany Today at the Institut für Internationale Kommunikation und Auswärtige Kulturarbeit e.V. (IIK Bayreuth) in Bayreuth, Bavaria. The program entails intensive language study, performance, a seminar on music culture in Germany today and excursions to different historical sights.

At Holy Cross, Rodrigue is a principal flutist in the Holy Cross Chamber Orchestra and director and founder of the Holy Cross flute choir. She is on the Student Advisory Committee for the music department and a member of Schola Cantorum, Purple Key Society, and Alpha Sigma Nu. She was the Dana Scholar for the 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 academic years.

Rodrigue is currently applying for Ph.D. programs to study musicology.

“I am especially interested in opera and musical theater, most specifically questions of genre involving the intersection between between serious and popular musical styles in the 20th century,” she said. “One day I hope to become a professor of musicology.”

As the German national agency for international cooperation in higher education, DAAD serves to promote international academic relations especially through funding the exchange of students and faculty between Germany and other countries. Supporting more than 50,000 individuals a year with competitive grants, the DAAD is the largest such organization in the world.