Dakota McBride: Celebrating music through performance and by helping others learn to play their own tunes
Dakota McBride picked up the saxophone when he was in the sixth grade, and by his mid-teens, he'd made his bond with the instrument.
"This was something I really wanted to do for the rest of my life," explained McBride, who, as a senior music education student in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, is well on his way to accomplishing that goal. After graduation, he hopes to teach at either the high school or collegiate level.
"I chose music ed because I've had a lot of really good teachers," he said. "And I kind of left it up to myself to pay that forward."
The Danville, Virginia, native first visited Radford University as a high school junior, participating in a conference with his band director, Highlander Cody Kesling '12.
"I just kind of fell in love with the school after that," McBride recalled. Over the past four years, he's performed with campus music groups that include Radford University's Symphonic Wind Ensemble, its campus and community band and orchestra, the Radford Singers, the Highlander Saxophone Quartet and the Highlanders Pipes and Drums.
"Radford has really helped me broaden my abilities and learning outside of the classroom," McBride said. "It's provided me a lot of opportunities to learn both as a performer and an educator, and I think it's helped me to become better at both of those things."