Being blind does not stop Stan from shining at Utrechts Conservatorium

Finding your way on the school premises. Writing your own sheet music. Or getting to the right information on the student portal. Such things become a hard task when you are visually impaired. But still, Stan Verstegen felt like a fish in the water at Utrechts Conservatorium, despite being blind. This Summer he is graduating in Jazz & Pop as piano practitioner.

Reading and writing sheet music might seem like an impossible task when you are seriously visually impaired. However, there are music notation programs that can assist you. The fact that HKU works with one of these systems, Lilypond, is one of the reasons why Stan decided to go study at Utrechts Conservatorium. He is now even teaching there and speaks of the good personal interactions and good study climate for the visually impaired. ‘All these factors added together convinced me to start at HKU five years ago.’

The best route

The conservatory consists of two educational buildings, right in the middle of Utrecht’s busy city centre. To prepare himself properly, Stan practiced the route to the buildings with a mobility coach. ‘Together we plotted the best route, which bus I should take and how far I had to walk. The coach also helped me navigate the interior buildings. And thus, I was able to find my way from day one.’

Sheet music with good grades

Making music with Lilypond is a bit like programming, Stan explains. ‘You can literally type the name of a note, its duration and the exact pitch. This can be transferred to a PDF that you can show to a teacher or fellow student. It does take a while before you master the programme, but the fact that I would be able to write music in this way, seemed unthinkable to me. In year 4, during the module Arrangement / Composition, I put two of my own pieces on sheet. I received a good grade for that, which makes me very proud.'

Stan working with the music notation programme Lilypad

Digital accessibility

What can be challenging for Stan, however, is finding the right information on the Student Portal: ‘I use software that can read aloud online texts or translate it to braille. But with the loads of information available on the portal, I have to ask for some help once in a while. Teachers and students are always willing to help me out. For example, one module heavily relied on the use of Powerpoints, which are not that useful when you’re blind of course. The teacher therefore described the images in a text document, so that I was still able to follow the class material. ’

Curious co-workers

Stan never got any negative remarks about his disability: ‘Of course there are students and teachers who are curious about how I function. And sometimes people ask about my condition, but I don’t mind at all to explain them how I do things. After a while, when you get to know each other, you are simply colleagues. In the end you are all doing the same: making music. The only thing is that I do it slightly differently than others.’