{"id":11966,"date":"2020-10-22T17:15:51","date_gmt":"2020-10-22T21:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=11966"},"modified":"2024-05-07T13:34:53","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T17:34:53","slug":"a-musical-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/a-musical-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"A Musical Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 1974, Bruce Springsteen wrote Born to Run<\/em>\u2014perhaps the ultimate anthem to shaking off the dust of your surroundings and getting out while you’re young\u2014in a small cottage one mile from Monmouth’s campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four decades later, Ohio native and Springsteen superfan Connor Rupp took that sentiment to heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen a song comes to you at the right place and time, it can mean the world to you,\u201d says Rupp. \u201cI was a restless kid in high school and wanted to get out of Ohio. And when I listened to Born to Run<\/em>, I felt like Bruce\u2019s music was talking to me in the cheesiest way possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rupp did get out, sort of. He is now a junior music industry major at Monmouth, works in the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music,<\/a> and lives off campus in Asbury Park, New Jersey\u2014Springsteen\u2019s old stomping grounds. The irony of his journey isn\u2019t lost on him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe place Bruce wanted to get out of was the place I wanted to come to,\u201d Rupp says with a laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was Rupp\u2019s love for Springsteen\u2019s music that first put Monmouth on his radar. As a teenager, he and a friend made a pilgrimage of sorts\u2014driving 10 hours east to visit Bruce\u2019s old Jersey shore hangouts. Rupp\u2019s mother made him promise to visit a college along the way. \u201cClosest to everything was Monmouth, of course,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Rupp, with Eileen Chapman, inside the Springsteen Archives on Monmouth\u2019s campus. \u201cSeeing things from this perspective is just incredible,\u201d says Rupp.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When it came time to apply to college, Rupp, who plays bass, says he wanted a school that offered a music industry program and had a thriving arts scene. Monmouth checked both boxes. \u201cI wanted to be around \u2018the noise,\u2019 and Monmouth is between two of the biggest music cities in the world: New York and Philadelphia,\u201d says Rupp. \u201cIt felt like the perfect place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also feels like \u201cthe perfect time\u201d to be a student here, says Rupp. This spring, Billboard <\/em>magazine named the University one of the country\u2019s Top Music Business Schools<\/a>. Students in the program have \u201calmost every resource possible\u201d at their disposal, says Rupp. Most of his music classes are held at Lakehouse Recording Studios, a multimillion-dollar facility in Asbury Park. Many of his professors are trained producers who know \u201cthe real-world side of the music business,\u201d says Rupp. \u201cAnd the kids in my department want to make the arts scene just as big as it possibly can be, which is exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rupp is still a Springsteen devotee, but he says the music speaks to him for different reasons now. \u201cIt\u2019s not about the restless youth anymore,\u201d says Rupp. \u201cIt\u2019s more about my passion for talking about social justice. I appreciate Bruce\u2019s voice as an activist and as an ambassador of the American dream.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working as a student archivist in the Archives, Rupp helps catalog donations sent in from fans around the world, and sometimes from Springsteen himself<\/a>: news clippings, concert tickets, memorabilia, and the like. He also assists with events that are staged by the Archives. At one, \u201cSpringsteen: His Hometown,\u201d Rupp was personally introduced to the Boss by his own boss: Archives Director Eileen Chapman. The moment was both awesome and surreal, says Rupp, and provided further evidence he was at the perfect place at the perfect time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStudents just have access to so much here,\u201d he says. \u201cI got here, talked to people about Bruce, and the next thing I know I\u2019m in the Archives going through Springsteen\u2019s personal collection. But even outside the music industry program, I know there are opportunities like that for students to get involved,\u201d says Rupp. \u201cIf you have a passion or a goal, Monmouth is the place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Connor Rupp’s love of Springsteen’s music led him on a road trip that landed him at Monmouth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":11978,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[91],"class_list":["post-11966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-currents","category-tides","tag-alumni-student-faculty"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"Currents, Tides","issue":"Fall 2020","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11966"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12507,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11966\/revisions\/12507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}