Taylor Wright, a graduate student at the Frost School of Music, recently won the University of Miami’s ninth annual “Three Minute Thesis” (3MT) competition, which is notable for several reasons. Not only is Wright the first Frost School student to win, he was this year’s sole master’s-level student in the field, competing against seven doctoral students from across the university.
“From what I’ve seen, it’s unusual for a master’s student to make it into this competition at all,” says Wright’s thesis advisor, Dr. Shannon de l’Etoile, associate dean for graduate studies in the Frost School and a professor of music therapy. “I can take no credit for how well he presented. He was clear, compelling, and engaging. One of the judges came up to me afterward to say, “I gave him a perfect score!””
True to its title, 3MT requires contestants to summarize their thesis or doctorate in three minutes or less. It’s a high-pressure situation with the time constraint as a red line.
“If I had gone a second over, I would have been disqualified,” says Wright. “They’re quite strict, with a digital clock for everyone to see, which was nerve-wracking and stressful. I thought it was a miracle I didn’t mess up. I ended mine at 2:53 or 54.”
Wright is scheduled to graduate on May 8 with a Master of Music degree in Music Therapy With Undergraduate Equivalency. His thesis is “Infant-Directed Singing and Same-Sex Fathers: Two Instrumental Case Studies,” for which de l’Etoile was the ideal advisor. Her research explores infant response to their mothers’ singing in a range of situations – mothers suffering postpartum depression, babies with Down Syndrome, and families in high-risk circumstances.
“My work piggybacks on much of what she’s done,” says Wright. “Doing something for the LGBTQ community is important to me. As someone who wants to be a dad myself someday, I want to know, can gay dads be effective parents? I wondered if I might be depriving my own kids, so this feels important. Gay dads can be intuitive, sensitive parents. That was never modeled for people like me, growing up in a religious context – Baptist private Christian school, K-12. So I never heard about it.”
For the record, Wright describes his parents as “very supportive of me as both queer and a music therapist.” His mother showed it by coming to 3MT and watching her son win.
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A perfect score for a prize-winning thesis – University of Miami
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