FEATURES ‘All those things put together a total expression of me’

By Jillian Parks Social Media Manager

Stacey Jones was an international marimba competitor, composer, collegiate-level instructor, and orchestra member before she finished her undergraduate degree. She now works closely with prospective music students considering Hillsdale College.

Artist and music teacher of percussionist studies at Hillsdale College, Stacey Jones stepped into the role after her late husband, Eric Jones passed away in 2011. He joined the college’s music department, specializing in percussion, in August 2000. More recently, Stacey Jones has guided students through the admissions process as a department-specific counselor, all while pursuing her own musical endeavors.

“It was very exciting, and I was very honored,” Jones said. “It forced me to deal with the grief process. Every time I stepped into the building, I was able to celebrate Eric’s life too and what he accomplished there before I did.”

Growing up, Jones played everything from guitar to viola. In eighth-grade, she volunteered to play the timpani. After talking with a percussionist, she learned how to play a snare drum. She settled on percussion during high school.

“I think it sustained my interest and kept me focused because — it’s sort of crass to say it this way — but there’s so many things you can hit,” Jones said. “I think another aspect of percussion that kept me interested over the long term was the physical movement of it. I’m also an athlete, so percussion felt like music that I could do while doing athletic movement and dancing. It felt like all those things put together a total expression of me.”

Sophomore Luca Vitale worked one-on-one with Jones when he transferred to Hillsdale and joined the music department.

“My first impression of Stacey was that she was a person who genuinely wanted to improve the music culture on campus, and she was incredibly kind and helpful in that process with me,” sophomore Luca Vitale said. “The music program here was the most important reason I transferred, and the help she gave was instrumental in my decision.”

Jones attended college at the University of Oregon where she originally planned on majoring in composition. She quickly realized her percussion lessons better piqued her interest.

Jones married her husband Eric Jones halfway through her undergraduate degree.

“Because he was four years older than me, and his career was four years ahead of mine, he went off to get his graduate degree in Pennsylvania, we got married, and I went with him,” Jones said. “I couldn’t finish my degree there, so I had to work full-time selling furniture.”

The two formed the Equal Temperament Percussion Duo, commissioning music from composers and playing concerts together. Jones aided Eric in his doctorate-level recitals and continued her undergraduate studies at Michigan State. After she graduated, she had a daughter and came back to the college, where she was awarded the Catherine Herrick Cobb Fellowship. The fellowship is offered to students with “exceptional music talent,” enrolled in music or performing arts programs and covers tuition, room, board, books, and living expenses,” according to Michigan State University.

In the first year of the fellowship, she competed in concerto competitions, winning the Music Teachers National Association Young Artists competition as a percussionist. The second year of her fellowship got cut short.

“I never was able to go back because I was raising a family and working,” Jones said. “That’s the last education that I had.”

After Eric Jones passed away, Professor of Music James Holleman offered her a job at the college. Originally, the job focused on classical and jazz percussion. As Jones is classically-trained, Holleman decided to exchange the jazz portion of the job with covering the music admissions process.

“I knew she was a good fit for our students and our department, and I wanted to support this family after losing Eric because he was a friend to all of us,” Holleman said. “Their two daughters call me Uncle Jim. And it meant a lot to me to get her in that position.”

According to Holleman, Jone’s role in music admissions has helped the department grow.

“Having somebody whose job was to coordinate with admissions on behalf of the music department, communicate with prospective students, set up their auditions with the different faculty in the department, collect all that information, feed that information to me, so we could then allocate scholarships and recruit, made all the difference in the world on our recruiting,” Holleman said.

Jones said she continues to learn and practice. She played the hardest piece she has ever had to learn in a recent recital.

“My recital, ‘On the Precipice,’ was about continuing to grow as a musician and trying new things,” Jones said. “While academic faculty may publish or present research,