If you’ve enjoyed live music around Mount St. James, there’s a good chance Elliot Barron ’25 played a part in making it. He’s the president and a quads player in HC Bands, a percussionist in classical ensembles such as the Wind Ensemble and orchestra, and a drummer in student-led jazz combo groups.
“The music I play is all about versatility,” Barron said.
The same could be said for his academic interests. An accomplished music major, Barron is also finding ways to bring his artistic passion to other fields, and in studying seemingly disparate subjects, the senior is finding more harmony than dissonance.
“The College’s Ethics, Society, and the Institution of Business (ESIB) minor is essentially a business minor, but done through the liberal arts in a Holy Cross way,” Barron said. “It’s about learning how businesses work, but more than that it’s about how businesses ought to work.”
The ability to combine a music major with an ESIB was a key part of what drew Barron, originally from South Carolina, to Holy Cross.
“I knew that I wanted to study a variety of different things and be able to figure out what I want to focus on at college, and not make that decision before, while also making connections between different fields of study,” he said. “I’ve been able to do that at Holy Cross.”
Barron brings equal rigor and commitment to his two areas of interest. Classes, he highlights, have helped him understand music’s historical lineage, from Gregorian chant through eras of classical and Romantic music, but he’s also been pushed outside his comfort zone through lessons.
“My first semester I was studying marimba, and I wasn’t really a mallet player before I came here, and I really struggled; it made me question whether music is right for me,” he recalled. However, “my instructor, Jonathan Hess, and the community here at Holy Cross is so supportive; it helped me overcome that adversity and gave me a greater sense and appreciation for music.”
That dedication is something his advisor, Daniel DiCenso ’98, associate professor of music and chair of the department, sees as a boon for Baron’s business ventures.
“To be a disciplined musician is to be a disciplined person, and those skills are very transferable to the business world,” DiCenso said. “That someone would bring a perspective on music and the arts to a business only enhances it.”
The College has enabled Barron to dive deep into both fields of study while also helping him grow outside the classroom and preparing him for professional ventures.
“I’ve always been interested in entrepreneurship and how business is the backbone of the American dream,” Barron said. “The ESIB baseline is in economics and business fundamentals, but the rest of the minor is up to your own discretion. The topic for mine is the commercial music industry and how it’s going to be affected by AI and big data. It is, to some extent, about dissecting the framework of the music business, but more than that, it’s looking into the social changes that come with business innovation.”
Building skills outside the classroom
Just as with his music courses, Barron is able to carry his business skills into the College’s extracurriculars.
As co-president of the Sales Club, run through the Carlyse and Arthur A. Ciocca '59 Center for Business, Ethics, and Society, Barron finds opportunities for current students to connect with alumni who are sales professionals. Members have pitch competitions and network with alumni while learning about their businesses’ sales cycles.
He’s also been able to apply these on-campus experiences to real-life settings, as with his sales internship with Dell in the summer of 2024.
“The skills I built from being a music major and ESIB minor helped prepare me for that; sales is performative, and I think that transfers very well from a music discipline,” he said.
That discipline paid off: Barron was offered a full-time job in sales at Dell after graduation.
Barron aims to work in sales and gain hands-on experience for a few years, and “the hope is that after I graduate, I will continue to play music in party and wedding bands,” he said. “I will continue to pursue music, it’s what I’m most passionate about, and down the road I hope to one day work for myself and pursue entrepreneurship.”
After his four years on campus, Barron aims to take more than just his knowledge with him; the College’s Jesuit foundation has also left an impact.
“It speaks to the community that we have here: People look out for one another, people want to make Holy Cross a better place, and people want to finish at HC and go out into the world and make it a better palace,” Barron said. “That’s the kind of community attitude I wanted to be a part of, and I knew that would be the underpinning of whatever I do.”
It’s a mindset DiCenso has seen from Barron in and out of the classroom: “Whenever we have prospective students here, he’s the first to raise his hand and show them around. The joke is we’re not going to let Elliot graduate: We refer to him as the mayor of the music department. He’s someone who is very organized and adult-like in his time management. It will translate so well to the business world — and to bring some percussion into that world will be much more interesting to them."
