Anne Vittoria

Meet Frances Perkins Scholar Anne Vittoria
College Street Journal, November 19, 2004

Anne VittoriaFour years ago, Mount Holyoke welcomed Anne Tremblay into its Frances Perkins program. Age forty-something, in the midst of a divorce, with three children, Tremblay was finally ready to finish a college education that had begun more than 20 years earlier. This year, she will graduate bearing a new name she chose to reflect her life’s endeavors: Anne Vittoria.

A native of South Hadley, Vittoria entered the University of Massachusetts in 1973 as music major and French horn player. A personal tragedy caused her to drop out of school, and she soon she found that her musical ambitions had taken a backseat to marriage and motherhood.

During those years, said Vittoria, “I had always had a burning desire to go back to school.” But her family commitments and her then husband’s strenuous objections had kept her at home. Six years ago, she mustered the courage to contact the Frances Perkins Program. After consulting with Carolyn Dietel, the program’s associate director, she earned an associate’s degree at Holyoke Community College and in 2001 enrolled at Mount Holyoke.

Reflecting on the unraveling of her marriage, she recalled that good news from Mount Holyoke—such as receiving her acceptance and her financial aid award—lessened the sting of her personal difficulties. “I knew this was the place for me,” she said. “This has been a fantastic journey of self-discovery and confidence building.”

Vittoria is majoring in music with a minor in religion, two disciplines that are thoroughly intertwined in her life. She has always loved singing, and for the past seven years has worked as choir director and cantor for the Roman Catholic community of St. Theresa of Lisieux in South Hadley. Among her many activities, Vittoria has founded the Girls’ Inc. of Holyoke Community Chorus. This month the girls will join with Mount Holyoke’s Jazz Ensembles under the direction of Mark Gionfriddo for a concert titled “Sisters in Jazz.” They will perform Friday, November 19 at 7:30 pm in McCulloch Auditorium of Pratt Hall.

Earlier this fall, Vittoria performed an ambitious senior recital titled “Now I Become Myself.” “There was a religious theme connecting most of the pieces,” Vittoria said. “I chose expressions of love for God and family.” She sang nine songs from the seventeenth century through the twentieth century and then, with a choir of FPs as well as several women from the community, she performed three pieces by living women composers. The highlight of the recital was a choral setting by Gwyneth Walker of a May Sarton poem, “Now I Become Myself.” Her newly assumed surname comes from another recital piece, a seventeenth-century song by the Italian composer Giacomo Carissimi, which, she explained, “speaks of being victorious in my heart.”

Vittoria is grateful to the music faculty, including visiting instructor Mark Bartley, Hammond-Douglass Professor of Music and choral director Catharine Melhorn, associate professor Larry Schipull, professor and chair Linda Laderach, and Mark Gionfriddo, director of jazz ensembles, instructor, accompanist, and Catholic music director. After graduation, Vittoria hopes to attend the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, California.

-- Photo by: Todd M. LeMieux