The World for a Song

Kathryn Compton Bailey Puffett ’60 first came to Pacific University as a participant in Music in May. Her love of music has since taken her around the world, performing, researching and teaching. Today, she enjoys a quiet life in Cambridge, England, copyediting and writing books about and related to music.

But how she got there was quite the ride.

“[I was brought to Pacific by] Music in May, in which I got second place in my senior year of high school and, as a result, got to play a concerto with the Portland Junior Symphony.

“I spent a few days in Forest Grove, in the home of one of the professors of music, and got to know the place and the people and found both it and them attractive.”

She majored in music — obviously — focusing on piano, which she’s been playing since she was 5 to 6. However, she said, “I really started to learn about music when I was an undergraduate at Pacific.”