She found her place in a world of music By Jane Kaufman The Berkshire Eagle
As a child with a July birthday, Kathryn Andersen Day’s presents were tickets to Tanglewood to see violin soloists. Among them were Itzhak Perlman, Midori and Joshua Bell. She herself took up the instrument in the third grade at Allendale Elementary School. Her first teacher was Alla Zernitskaya.
By the time she was a senior at Pittsfield High School in 2003, she knew she wanted to pursue a life in music but wasn’t exactly sure of how it would take shape. Partly inspired by its generous award, she applied for the Daniel Pearl Berkshire Scholarship. “I don’t think I could have predicted all of the incredible opportunities and memories that would come from the education that I received as made possible by the Daniel Pearl Scholarship,” Day said. It allowed her to
“think bigger, beyond our wonderful life in Pittsfield, to what else was possible.” Pearl was a reporter for The Transcript and The Berkshire Eagle. He went on to The Wall Street Journal. In 2002, as chief of its South Asia bureau in Bombay, while working on a story about terrorism, he was kidnapped and killed in Pakistan. The scholarship was established the following year, and Day was its first recipient. In addition to being a journalist, Pearl was trained as a classical violin-
ist. He played guitar and mandolin. While living in the Berkshires, he performed in a Bluegrass band. Day was inspired by Pearl’s passion for his work. “I knew I wanted to find something that made me excited to work and live every day,” she said. Today, at 38, Day is The Juilliard School’s associate director of K-12 music programs. With a team, she writes and prepares curriculum, traveling globally to work with music teachers and provide professional de-
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Saturday, February 24, 2024 | Making The Grade 2024
DANIEL PEARL BERKSHIRE SCHOLARSHIP
PHOTO BY SCOTT ROTZOLL
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Kathryn Andersen plays for children in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2016, at the Cambodian Children’s Fund in her first of three visits.
