Many UW-Whitewater students within the music department are given the chance to perform a recital for fellow students, faculty and community members during their senior years.

At 3 p.m. on Sunday in the Light Recital Hall, Mallory Hillock will be performing her senior clarinet recital in an ensemble with three other clarinets and a violin.

“It’s cool to be able to share what you spend your life doing,” Hillock said.

Hillock chose all the songs she will perform at the recital. She said it was most difficult to find a piece to play with the violinist because there aren’t many pieces written for that duet.

Hillock has been playing the clarinet since she was in fifth grade. However, she said she first fell in love with UW-Whitewater in high school when she came to band camps offered on campus in the summer.

“I experienced great and motivational band experiences,” Hillock said.

It was at a UW-Whitewater band camp that Hillock met Professor Glenn Hayes, director of bands at UW-Whitewater.

“I distinctly remember her enthusiasm for music,” Hayes said. “It was obviously her passion then and is even more so now.”

Hillock said the band camps really showed her a college professional view of what it is like to be in a campus music program. She said the experience also helped her decide to become a music teacher, which led her to start taking classes in the major right away during her first year.

Aside from the clarinet, she can also play the mellophone, which is a French horn used in marching bands or drum and bugle corps, and she is currently one of two drum majors for the marching band.

Hillock will graduate in the spring with a degree in music education. She will start teaching next semester.

She said she cannot wait to student teach because, “you finally get to do what you’ve been going to school for.”

In preparation for her future career, she said she practices around two hours a day. Hillock said being a music teacher comes with a lot of responsibility to know all the instruments and enjoy every day with students and music.

“She is going to have an immense impact on hundreds of lives through music,” Hayes said.