Ve por tus sueños: Stefania Osorio’s journey to music educator

Ask around about music education graduate Stefania Osorio and you’ll hear the same words again and again and again. 

Passionate. Reliable. Exemplary. Extraordinary. 

Spend any time with her and you understand that those descriptors, like Osorio herself, hit all the right notes. 

“I feel like life gave me everything I needed to study and just…do my best,” said Osorio, who completed her Bachelor of Music in Music Education.  

Osorio’s best looks a little something like this: Winning the Rowan Symphony Orchestra’s concerto competition on violin, her primary instrument, winning the String Ensemble concerto competition on viola, her secondary instrument, serving as concertmaster for the orchestra and being one of two students selected to perform with faculty in Schubert’s iconic “Octet.” Additionally, she and the Rowan String Ensemble collaborated with dance students for a special performance that had musicians moving around the stage with dancers, requiring memorization in lieu of reading sheet music. 

“She’s so prepared it’s ridiculous. I’d say she played better than me,” says Dr. Timothy Schwarz, associate professor and head of strings at Rowan of that performance. “She never, never missed a beat.” 

Schwarz and Osorio have a long history. In 2019, he traveled to the National University of Colombia to host a violin masterclass where Osorio was a student. Born and raised in Bogotá, she was completing her performance degree at their conservatory at the time and was considering her next move. With a long standing passion for teaching, she began exploring options in the United States and Europe to become a music educator. One of the professors she inquired with was Schwarz, who Osorio says made things easy by explaining the overwhelming and confusing process from inquiry to application to audition to enrolling. Pursuing music education at Rowan meant another four-year degree for Osorio, which she says was the best decision because it gave her time to acclimate to the culture and language. She was accepted to Rowan and began planning for her journey. 

After postponing the Fall 2020 semester in the wake of the pandemic, Osorio arrived in early 2021 to a snow-covered campus. She recalls approaching Wilson Hall for the first time and being wowed by the beauty of the campus covered in white. It was her first experience with snow. It also was Osorio’s first time in the United States, her first time living alone and away from home. She used a translator app for everything and asked another international student, one who picked her up from the airport upon her arrival, how to set up a bank account and get a new cell phone that would work here. 

“It was definitely a shock. I was feeling every emotion all at once,” she recalls of her first couple months on campus, navigating finding employment to buy groceries while starting new classes in a new country. 

On top of her studies as a music education major for violin performance with minors in viola and jazz studies, Osorio was also studying English. She listened to podcasts and made flash cards she studied while going about her day to day. She bought a book of words and phrases and made it her mission to use at least one a day in a sentence or conversation. She also made a conscious effort to talk to anybody and everybody she encountered to test and learn the language. 

“So many factors make things more difficult for international students. It is impressive to see her have it so together and juggle all these things,” says Schwarz, recalling a point during Osorio’s final semester she had but an hour free each day, between her coursework, taking lessons, teaching lessons and working to support herself. 

“And yet, you would still find her helping out a classmate.” 

Osorio plans to bring the same energy to her career as an educator as her professor and mentor Schwarz, who, she says, is always excited, supportive, kind and gives his best. Throughout her time at Rowan she says she never felt stuck and always left his lessons with the tools she needed and a plan for how to improve. 

“If I ever need anything, it’s always ‘let’s see what we can do,” says Osorio. 

The summa cum laude graduate will celebrate the completion of her degree at the college’s Commencement ceremony on May 14.  She has her sights set on a full-time teaching job in the area or pursuing a graduate degree to continue learning and growing as a musician and educator. 

A violinist since the age of 11, Osorio grew up with supportive parents who insisted she follow her dreams. Her family back home in Colombia remain her driving force. 

“My parents really wanted me to go for my dreams, the same way their parents did for them,” she says, recognizing her family’s sacrifices that paved the way.