Senior Lucy Previn Delivers First Student Meditation
By SERENA YUE, LEON XIE, and LUKE CHON
The conclusion of winter break marked a transition from the faculty meditation series to student-written ones, meditations that were hand-picked among dozens of senior class entries by Exeter’s English department. Scheduled every Wednesday morning at 9:50 a.m. in Phillips Church, meditations are thoughtful, intimate moments for attendees to hear from and connect to faculty members, and now seniors, throughout the Academy. As Exonians have settled back in for the New Year, the long-awaited student meditation series finally kicked off with senior Lucy Previn’meditation on Jan. 8.
In her piece, titled “Weight of a Legacy,” Previn gave a nine-part talk about her musical legacy in front of a packed Phillips Church. Previn’s meditation, which began with a violin performance of Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” discussed Previn’s emotional journey and relationship with the violin, detailing her journey to finding ownership from playing the instrument as she carved out a musical identity distinct from her family’s heritage.
Previn’s story began in kindergarten. She explained that her parents, much to her chagrin, pushed her to learn violin in the musical footsteps of her grandfather André Previn, a world-famous pianist, conductor, and composer. Despite her desire to produce the clear, deep sound that more experienced players could bend to their will, she emphasized the difficulty of starting out and how she only managed scratchy, whining notes in the beginning of her violin studies.
Previn explained her core motivation to continue playing despite her initial struggles: a perfectionist mentality. “It used to be that my perfectionist tendencies would equate to me telling myself that I wasn’t good enough,” she said. “Being a perfectionist can be very useful in learning an instrument, though. It can provide motivation and a clear objective to strive toward.”
Chasing that dream, however, would prove to be an exhausting pursuit, especially with the weight of Previn’s ancestry on her shoulders. It seemed that no matter where she went, the question “Are you related to the Andre Previn?” reared its head the moment anyone well-versed in music noticed her surname.
When she arrived at Exeter for the first time, Previn was still in the midst of her search for a discrete musical identity. Instructor in Music and conductor of the Symphony Orchestra Rohan Smith recalled meeting her at an open house and, like many others, becoming curious about her connection to her grandfather. “She came up and introduced herself to me and Mr. Rabb, and we asked, ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Lucy Previn’, she replied, so of course we asked if there was any relation. So she said, “yes, grandfather” — and so I fell into exactly the same trap. We wanted Lucy to chart her own path.”
Smith, having a lifetime’s worth of experience in music, applauded Previn’s thoughtfulness in the construction of her meditation and found it a touching story. “Its eloquence and imagination and how it cut to the point about music, that resonated with me, because music is my life,” he said. “I heard her talk about it in an exceptionally aware and deep way. I didn’t know about her underlying background and story in music until now, and it was so moving because many students go through such upheavals in music. They’re pushed so hard because there are such great expectations and baggage attached to being a young musician. It’s important for them to realize that music is something she cares about for herself as Lucy does.”
In the final moments of her meditation, Previn described in vivid detail a moment she shared with her grandfather shortly before he passed. As he lay in bed, flicking and waving his arms through the air as if directing an invisible orchestra, she observed the man whose legacy she’d struggled to separate her own career from in his element. Previn left the image of her grandfather demonstrating his love for music in the minds of everyone in attendance.
Today, Previn remains an active leader in Exeter’s musical communities, performing as the co-concertmaster in the Chamber and Symphony Orchestras last fall. Instructor in Mathematics and fervent attendee of meditations Adam Chawansky commented on the nuances that differentiate the speeches of teachers from that of students. “I would say it’s on par,” he commented. “The students are all seniors, so they’ve got a pretty wide range of experience to draw on for their own meditations. I also think the fact that this is coming from the entire senior class… they’re making sure that they choose really high quality meditations that provide insights and perspective to the whole community.” When asked whether he intends to continue attending these student-led meditations, Chawansky, noting how the quality of Previn’s meditation set the stage for more to come in the future, replied, “Yeah. I’m hoping to have a perfect record.”