For the Love of Music - Laura Main Webster ’91

By Chloe Echols ’23

Laura Main Webster ’91 wears many hats in the Hathaway Brown community. As an alumna, mother of an alumna, teacher, and Performing Arts department chair, she has a unique perspective on HB and insight into the lives of both students and teachers.

Laura began her HB experience as a child in eighth grade who loved music. Student life, for Laura, was filled with blissful moments that included creating dances with classmates, participating in musicals or shows, and writing songs in the courtyard during lunch. Her love of the arts ran so deep that she would cry when performances were over. Music also helped her cope with feelings of not fitting in. In her school years, HB was not as diverse as it is currently, so there were often feelings of social exclusion. Though a somewhat painful experience, this deepened Laura’s involvement in the musical world, as she found it to be her home and place of acceptance. She remembers caring about social excursions and grades, but nothing trumped her love of anything musical or of the arts. This love of music permeated her everyday life and formed the music teacher and lover of the arts that we know today.

When thinking back, Laura says she remembers many times singing, creating, and dancing as a child in Primary and Middle School. She also remembers often sitting in the grass singing with former teacher Deb Southard. “These were the times that all felt right with the world despite having challenging academics,” she says.

Feelings of peace, love, and joy are vivid in all her memories of HB and create a desire in her to spread the same feelings to her students through music, empathy, and intentional communication. Her childhood influences her teaching every day because she wants everyone to feel loved and accepted at all times; the way she felt when singing. She wants and strives to make the world of performing arts a home for those who feel like they don’t fit in. Laura says that when teaching, she always tries to make a personal connection, to share music that comforts and empowers, and to enforce the principle that everyone matters, everyone has value, and everyone is welcome. “I pride myself in trying to see people, to be personal, and to see the best in everyone,” she says.

Her love of music motivates her to connect with everyone in HB’s community, from the cleaning staff to the infants she teaches. She recalls a moment of catching a student’s eye while singing a song called “You Matter to Me.” She remembers it because the student was going through a difficult moment in her life and experiencing feelings of loneliness and weariness. This moment was so beautiful and intense and proves Laura’s commitment to showing love and acceptance through music.

After attending HB, Laura went on to pursue more musical studies as an undergraduate at Sarah Lawrence College, and graduate school at Case Western Reserve University. There, she learned more about music and how to teach. After graduation, she came back to HB to teach and continue to grow in the world of music.

As Performing Arts Department chair, Laura works with infants through high schoolers and even presents nationally to music teachers from all over the country! Being an alumna and past participant in musical groups like Bravuras gives her insight and understanding into what each division specifically needs in their program. For example, with younger children she works on using music to express big emotions like anger or sadness. With Middle Schoolers, she uses music to tell stories and show how it can be used as a beautiful expression. In the Upper School, she combines both of these principles and adds in vocal techniques like vowel shape, dynamics, tone, and color of the sound. She enjoys her work with each division knowing the influence and power of music is in the room. She shares songs that soothe and share love like “Seal Lullaby’’ by Eric Whitacre or “Parting Glass” which is a traditional Scottish song. When asked if she has a saying or phrase that embodies her teaching, she says, “Welcome to the vocal arts room, mistakes made here,” “take your mess and make it your message,” and “I teach people not music.” These quotes encapsulate her message to those who enter the world of performing arts and her desire for her students to not just learn music, but also how to be a kind human.

Laura’s world is constantly surrounded by music and kindness. She welcomes her mentor group each morning, she teaches music all day every day, she meets with people one on one to practice but also to talk about the hardships of life, she greets her fellow faculty members, students, and staff with warm smiles, and she tries to love in every encounter. Laura Webster’s love of the performing arts is plain to everyone. And this love inspires her students, friends, fellow faculty, and family to share love and connection through music.

As a current student at HB, and having been taught by Mrs. Webster since kindergarten, I can confidently say that she has always invited me into the world of performing arts with love and joy. She has encouraged me to step outside my comfort zone, to make mistakes, to grow, and to strive for excellence, while having fun! I thank her for all the vocal techniques and strategies that I’ve learned. However, the most important thing I thank her for is my love for all things of the arts and the confidence to pursue those things. Ever since I was little, I’ve loved to sing, dance, color and draw, and never once has she put out this flame in me by correcting too much, critiquing too much, or pushing me too far. She has always cultivated, grown, and deepened this love, and for that I couldn’t be more grateful.