Campus Cutie: Antonio Joseph Dowling
Nickname: None. Especially not “Tony”
Hometown: Spokane, WA
Year: Senior
Major: Violin performance and philosophy double major
Relationship status: Single.
Post-grad plans/ goals: In the short-term, I plan to get my masters degree at the Boston Conservatory and explore options for my doctorate from there. Ultimately, I will be a concert violinist doing solo and chamber music work professionally.
Likes: Starbucks, good grammar, vulnerability, the ocean.
Dislikes: Writing essays, making assumptions, the inevitability of death (of my iPhone battery).
HC: What are you involved in on campus?
SEAC- Battle of the Bands Chair, LEAD Team- Spark SeattleU Co-chair (with the wonderful Megan Moran!), Hearing Chair- Integrity Board
Academic Mentor for the Creative Arts Learning Community (Bell 5 & 6), Fellow in the NASPA Undergraduate Fellows Program
HC: What is your best college memory thus far?
 Musical things aside, there is nothing I love more in this world than sharing coffee and conversation with someone. I’ve been very lucky to share these with incredible people I’ve met at SU over the last four years. So I’d really have to say that my best memory is actually a conglomeration of memories formed at Cafe Presse, Stumptown, Vita, Victrola, Kaldi Bros, Oddfellows, Lost Lake, and, of course, Starbucks.
HC:Who is your favorite composer? Why?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is, without question, my favorite composer. In the musical world, we talk about this sort of thing a lot, so I happen to have a very planned set of reasons why Mozart is so great.
1) There has never been such a diversely talented composer in the history of music. Mozart mastered the forms of chamber music, the symphony, sacred music, and opera to a degree that arguably hasn’t been matched since, and unarguably has not been matched by another multi-talented composer.
2) Being set in the middle of the rococo period, his music was the epitome of the era. It represents perfectly the charm and wit promoted by a culture that valued subtlety and beauty above all else. I miss this time in our history, and Mozart’s music is a vehicle to return to that time of cleverness and poise.
 3) The creativity involved in Mozart’s compositions is immense, especially given the rigid structure of the times. With impeccable taste, every detail of his work is balanced, within the given structure, yet there does not exist more creative music. When people are off put by structure as a general rule, I ask them to look at Shakespeare, Da Vinci, and Mozart- if they can deny the creativity of those individuals and their contemporaries who world within rigid structure, then clearly the argument isn’t going anywhere!
4) I believe Mozart to be the most profound translator of the human experience into the musical language.
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