Angelina Lopez ‘24 is only a sophomore in college, but she already knows exactly where she’s headed. Majoring in music education at Portland State University (PSU), she’s taken a focus in choral studies, with the goal of becoming a choir teacher.

Her ambition, she said, can largely be traced back to one person: choir and guitar teacher Mr. Otto Wild. Watching him work with students shaped her vision for what kind of educator she wants to be, Lopez explained.

“He really did impact me, as a student of his and as a future educator, seeing how he taught,” she said. “I love seeing a student blossom in their voice … I saw Mr. Wild [guide students towards that] all the time.”

Current students may remember Lopez as M’Lynn Eatenton in “Steel Magnolias,” the title character in “Prometheus,” or simply as a friendly face in the halls. While she made her mark on the La Salle stage, her experiences in theater and choir also helped shape her passions, she said.

“That feeling I get when I’m singing in the choir … it’s very cheesy, but I do feel like I’m floating sometimes, especially when it’s on the strongest point,” Lopez said. “You can see on their faces, everyone’s super into it. I love that.”

For Lopez, that ardor goes beyond the craft. She wants to give her future students what music has given her: a sense of belonging and a refuge from their own lives.

“Especially right now, when everything’s so complicated and there’s so much hurt and stress, music is always something that you can hold on to, and that will be comforting,” Lopez said. “I’d love to be a teacher who can inspire others to feel that connectedness with each other.”

Lopez already sees that sense of connectedness in her own choir at PSU. Lopez is a member of the Thorn Choir — the soprano and treble division of PSU’s Briar Choir — which draws students from across the university, many of whom are not music majors at all.

“You don’t have to be a music major to be in choir,” Lopez said. “You don’t have to be a theater major to do theater — you can just go and experience it.”

But that open, welcoming environment also comes with its own pressures for Lopez.

Many of her musically-oriented classes require students to perform for an audience of their teachers and peers, which at times leads Lopez to compare herself with others.

“There’s a feeling of, ‘I’m not good enough to study music,’ when it really isn’t true,” Lopez said. “It’s not about that — it’s about yourself and how well you’re going and how well you’re growing.”

The feeling is made worse, she explained, by the fact that most people who choose to major in music are already musicians. Everyone’s starting line is different, she said — depending on home experience, personal practice, and what their high school was able to offer, some classmates may be further along.

Partially for that reason, Lopez said that if she had known that she wanted to be a music education major when she was in eighth grade, she likely would have gone to a public high school, as they typically have the enrollment for a wider range of arts classes.

At first, Lopez was frustrated to be behind her peers in that sense, but her perspective shifted as she reflected on her time at La Salle. The choir and theater programs here are small, but that makes them closer, she said.

“I got to experience a choir where it was just us,” Lopez said. “I feel like that actually was good for me … as I’m going to be a music teacher, I know what it’s like to be in a school where the funding for music isn’t that much, or where the school is smaller, and how to navigate around that, like how Mr. Wild did and Mr. Shelton.”

La Salle’s academic rigor proved an asset as well. Though the content of her university courses — sight-reading, ear training, and choir ensemble, among others — bears little resemblance to most of what she studied at La Salle, Lopez said the workload felt familiar.

“La Salle is more work than other high schools,” she said. “I have friends that did not do as much as we did, but that’s what you get when you go to a college prep school. I feel like it really did prepare me for the amount of work I was going to do.”

The coursework itself, though, was a different thrill for Lopez.

“When I first went to PSU, it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m studying what I want to do,’ which was super cool to experience,” she said. “Like, ‘I’m just playing piano, and I’m in class right now.’ It was so weird, but it was also fun.”

Outside of class, she is working toward a seat in PSU’s Chamber Choir, a highly selective ensemble. Though she didn’t make the cut this year, Lopez is far from discouraged and is always improving, she said. 

“Just because I’m not in chamber doesn’t mean I’m not good enough to be a music major,” she said. “I have other avenues that I know I’m good at.”

Though her ambitions are set higher, Lopez is proud of what she has already accomplished.

Last term, the Briar Choir had the opportunity to sing Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” — a scenic cantata about the circle of life and the wheel of fortune — with the Oregon Symphony at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, colloquially referred to as the Schnitz.

For months before the concert, Lopez’s classes focused almost entirely on learning each of the symphony’s 25 movements, which largely consist of Medieval Latin and German.

In order to achieve the overwhelming force essential to the chorus of “O Fortuna” — the opening and closing song of the cantata — the Schnitz expanded its stage to fit the university choir, something that Lopez was particularly moved by.

“It was awesome to be able to be at the Schnitz and be on stage,” Lopez said. “There’s some people who have sung there before, and it’s like whatever. But for me, I’ve never seen that before.”

More recently, she performed in the PSU concert “Bloom,” where she sang what she currently considers her favorite choral piece: “To See the Sky,” a song about loss. The experience only reaffirmed her dream of teaching choir. 

“It’s just a beautiful song, with a bunch of beautiful chords in it,” Lopez said. “I want to be able to be in front of a choir and hear that chord in front of me and be able to guide them to success.”