Annika Katheleen Krafcik

Name

Annika Katheleen Krafcik

Degree

Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Music

Major

Performance
History, highest Honors
Russian and East European Studies

Concentration

Cello

About Me

My time at Oberlin centered around food, music, and Russian story-telling. As a nine-semester Pyler, I served as tasty-things maker, food safety coordinator, pizza cook, and food buyer. I majored in History, Russian & East European Studies, and Cello Performance. I struggled on and off with my relationship with the cello, but music-making brought me to some incredible places, including Sitka, Alaska, the island that stole my heart. As Russian language student, I had the privilege to visit Russia three times, always (rather foolishly) in the winter months: first for a theater-themed WT trip, then a semester abroad in St. Petersburg, and finally a solo research trip to Moscows Russian State Archive of Literature and Art. This year, I combined all three of my majors in my History Honors thesis on Nadezhda Briusova (1881-1951), a mass music educator whose pedagogy and dedication to the collective power of music shaped Soviet music culture from the ground up. More than anything, writing my thesis and studying Briusovas work reinforced for me the idea that music must be first and foremost about community-building. I will miss my community here at Oberlin. Thank you for the music, co-op meals, and all of the memories.

Study Abroad

I studied abroad in St. Petersburg at the Bard-Smolny Program in the Fall of 2018.

Campus Jobs

Research Assistant
Resident Assistant
SOAR Mentor
Oberlin Community Music School Music Theory Teacher

Favorite Place

My scholar study. I loved being perched up on the fourth floor of Mudd, overlooking Wilder Bowl, watching people come and go from their class, watching Peters change color over the course of the day. I decked out my scholar study with lantern lights and a purple yoga ball. I spent hours and hours there every day, and I got so much work done!

Favorite Class

Dostoevsky's Russia. Professor Stolarski taught us how to use literary texts as historical documents. We read a wide-range of Dostoevskys works his short stories, journal articles, as well as his more famous novels, such as Brothers Karamazov, Notes from the Underground, etc. I felt that, more than any other class I'd ever taken, this class helped me get inside the head of a writer and see the world through their eyes.

Clubs & Organizations

Oberlin Student Cooperative Association
Round Midnight

Memorable Oberlin Moment

My senior recital meant a lot to me. That fall, I had decided that I wasn't going to apply to grad school for music. That meant this recital wasn't going to be about grad school prep or proving myself. Rather, it would be about starting a new relationship between me and my cello, something that could be sustainable and personal. I played my very favorite pieces for cello the Allemande of Bach Suite VI, the Pas de Deux from Swan Lake, Debussy Sonata, Prokofiev Sonata pieces that scared me. And most importantly, I collected all of my favorite people in the world and brought them to Kulas. By the end of the recital, as I reached the last page of the Prokofiev, my eyes started to well with tears. Once we hit the final C-major chord, the waterworks came in earnest. I was weeping with wild abandon, totally and utterly overwhelmed by the power of the music and by the amount of love in the room.

Graduation Date

05/25/2020

Files

https://www.oc2020.oberlincollegelibrary.org/plugins/Dropbox/files/Krafcik_Annika_Katheleen.jpg

Citation

“Annika Katheleen Krafcik,” OC2020, accessed March 29, 2024, https://oc2020.oberlincollegelibrary.org/items/show/202.

Output Formats

Geolocation