When Rhiannon Hurst ’25 started gigging as a jazz vocalist, it didn’t take long for her to notice a pattern.
“The jazz space was very testosterone-leaning, which meant elitism and patriarchy were very much built in,” she said. In high school, when she was deepening her jazz studies, this culture made her feel “ostracized, and there was the assumption I knew nothing of jazz theory and performance,” she said. “That's when my drive to prove them wrong accelerated.”
That drive has taken her far and produced a list of accomplishments: She’s a 2021 National YoungArts Foundation Award winner for jazz voice. She graduated New England Conservatory Prep with a Level IV Jazz Certificate with honors and received the school’s most distinguished award, the Frances B. Lanier. Today, Hurst is a senior at Holy Cross, where she is a member of the College Honors Program and a Brooks Music Scholar.
In addition to the latter, and the first to be pursuing that scholarship in jazz voice, Hurst has also been named a Fenwick Scholar, the highest academic honor the College can bestow on a senior. As Fenwick Scholar, Hurst has a reduced traditional course load to realize an independent project, an opportunity she’s maximizing by interviewing female and nonbinary jazz artists; creating/teaching an inclusive jazz curriculum; researching/writing a thesis; and presenting at a conference and a final lecture recital, supported by three advisors and four readers. Inspired by female and nonbinary jazz artists’ talents and hungry for ways to amplify their voices, during spring semester 2025, Hurst will record and arrange an album of female jazz compositions on campus with female-identifying and queer jazz professionals.
“Two years earlier, some of the aspects of this work wouldn't be possible, but we now have the state-of-the-art Prior Performing Arts Center on campus,” Hurst said. “It is in The Prior that I will be actualizing my research through rehearsals and recording.”
Given her passion, Hurst considered exclusively pursuing a conservatory education. Currently, she is also enrolled in New England Conservatory of Music (NEC). During spring semester 2024, she’d wake up at 5:45 a.m. once a week to take the train to Boston to study with Dominique Eade, vocalist, composer, jazz legend — and also one of Hurst’s Fenwick advisors — before making it back to Worcester for her afternoon classes. However, as a student with varied interests, the liberal arts always appealed to her.
“That was one of my draws to Holy Cross,” she said. “I have the very fortunate opportunity to be a Brooks Scholar. Where else can you say that you are a music major, environmental studies and philosophy double minor while also attending a world-renowned conservatory for your voice lessons? That was definitely a privilege of going to Holy Cross.”
The College and NEC have created a partnership allowing students to study at both schools, and the studies make for an impressive workload. Hurst said she is grateful to her academic and Fenwick advisor, Daniel DiCenso ’98, associate professor and chair of the music department, for helping her map out more than just credit requirements.
“Professor DiCenso has been instrumental in facilitating the relationship between College of the Holy Cross and NEC," she said. "He also inspired and supported me to apply for the Fenwick Scholar program. Between my coursework essays, application for the honors program and lecture recitals, he recognized my desire to expand on my passion for studying and elevating women and queer women in jazz. I am forever thankful for his invaluable guidance.”
DiCenso had a lightbulb moment while listening to a 2022 National Public Radio interview with Terri Lyne Carrington, Grammy Award-winning drummer and composer, who edited the anthology “101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers.”
“I immediately thought of Rhiannon,” DiCenso said. He taught Hurst in his African American Music: From Blues to Rap course and noticed “she really gravitated toward questions about representation and appropriation and appreciation.”
The opportunity to be named a Fenwick Scholar invited “a real synergy of happenstance,” per DiCenso, as it aligned with the publishing of the anthology, the celebration of 50 years of coeducation at Holy Cross and the opening of The Prior, all of which occurred in 2022.
Highlighting the underrepresented
Since 2022, Hurst has familiarized herself with “101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers,” which she calls her “inspiration.” With the guidance of advisor Carmen Jarrin, associate professor of sociology and anthropology, she will interview several jazz artists, including Carrington, and study a number of female musicians — including Lil Hardin Armstrong, Toshiko Akiyoshi and Cassandra Wilson — to understand their path and how their experience in the male-dominated field shaped their artistry.
Following Hurst's research and interviews, her album recorded in The Prior will consist of six to eight tracks highlighting underrepresented jazz musicians. The multigenerational ensemble of jazz professionals will play together in various groups, from duos to sextets. Hurst has been responsible for arranging and managing ensembles since she began singing professionally and is accustomed to entering new scenes as an unknown entity, skills that came in handy during her Holy Cross study abroad program in Cork, Ireland.
“I didn't know anyone in Cork, so I started by exploring the local jazz scene,” Hurst said. She found two weekly jam sessions, one on Mondays at a speakeasy, the other on Thursdays at a bar.
Soon, she became a paid artist and a fixture in the Cork music scene — she played her own show at the International Guinness Cork Jazz Festival and opened for famed Malian composer Vieux Farka Touré, for which she carefully curated songs inspired by female musicians.
Her proactivity in no way surprised DiCenso.
“I can't tell you how many times as chair I get calls, three to four times a week — from all areas of the College — and they’d like some music at events,” he said. “I rely on Rhiannon as I would an adult or colleague to say, ‘This is the event, what do you think?’ And when she says, ‘I’ll organize something,’ it’s taken care of: She travels with her own amp, mic and extension cord, so when she rolls into a room she A to Z understands what’s necessary to perform at the highest level. I always say someday when I grow up I'll be as organized as Rhiannon.”
After her graduation next spring, Hurst hopes to pursue a master’s degree at NEC. Until then, she is taking stock of the progressive shifts her studies are empowering.
“I am honored to have this opportunity and platform to center art activism and work toward decentering patriarchy and amplifying inclusion in the academic dialogue," Hurst said. “I’m fortunate to have so much support from many different departments and the College’s administration."
