Finding a Voice Onstage and Off
2015 COM grad discovers new family with a cappella group
Four years ago, a BU Today camera crew shot video of the incoming Class of 2015 and their families as the freshmen were moving in. Among them was Jonathan Corson, who had driven six hours with his family from their home in Pottstown, Pa. “It’s going to be weird being so far away from home,” he said at the time, “but I’m ready to just explore.”
Looking back, Corson (COM’15) says now, “Coming to BU, where no one really knows who you are, was kind of scary.” But just weeks after arriving, he found a surrogate family. He auditioned for the Dear Abbeys, the University’s all-male a cappella group, and was accepted.
“I wanted to get involved and start making friends and start feeling like a part of some kind of community, to get into the real juice of college,” he says. “When I joined the Dear Abbeys, I instantly had 10 or 11 new brothers. And working with the Abbeys has confirmed that I do want to pursue a profession that involves music and creatives.”
In addition to singing with the group, the tenor has served as the organization’s business manager, media director, and most recently, music director.
“I found my voice onstage, and now I’ve found my voice offstage,” he says. “I’ve become more comfortable with who I am and more confident in myself.”
Corson plans to stay in Boston after graduation and hopes to find a job in public relations. (He was an account executive in COM’s PRLab, where students get real-world experience creating ad campaigns.) He’d still like to be a rock star, he says, but for now he’ll keep his job as an administrative assistant in Development & Alumni Relations.
“In the past you always know what is next, you have another semester, you have another year of school, you have these requirements to meet,” Corson says. “But now it’s kind of just up in the air. Anything can happen.”
Jason Kimball can be reached at jk16@bu.edu.
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