Central Michigan University vocal music major and Gladwin native Mario Sangret-Savalle will be embarking on a once in a lifetime opportunity after being awarded a prestigious fellowship in Germany.
“The CBYX Fellowship is the Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange Program for Young Professionals, and so basically 75 incoming young working professionals from the United States will go to Germany for a year where they’ll do a few months of language study, a university semester, and then an internship at the end of the program. It’s kind of a cultural exchange program to bridge some of the gaps and to have a little bit of a cultural experience in Germany while also providing work and educational experience to young professionals,” said Sangret-Savalle.
Mario said he decided to apply for the fellowship after he was exposed to the German language in a class at CMU and was left in awe of it.
“For my vocal performance degree, I had to take a year of German. I was never really interested in languages before. I generally was not a huge fan of the classes. They weren’t really engaging, but taking German was the first time I felt really engaged and really interested in the content and the culture. And then I was able to study abroad for a month in Germany. We went to a bunch of different places. Vienna, Hamburg, Berlin. And it was a really special experience. And I feel like I learned so much about me as a person and German culture and German music. And so ever since that I’ve been hooked,” Mario said.
Over 500 applicants throughout the country and Mario was awarded one out of the 75 spots. But without the foundation of the performing arts from his roots in Gladwin, Mario says he wouldn’t be in the position he is today.
“I think just the amount of people who have supported me and have taught me wonderful, incredibly influential lessons, like through high school, my choir director and my band directors, and even now my voice professor and professors here who have really seen something in me and saw that I have endless possibilities for what my life could be. It helped me see that too, and that was really special,” he said.
His time in Germany will be filled with a broad range of experiences, including, of course, music.
“I applied kind of with the track that I would be doing music and vocal music specifically. And so that was a big part of my application and interview process. And so yeah, I intend to like apply for internships at theaters and apply for internships through music at churches,” Mario said.
Before coming to CMU, this was never part of Mario’s original plan, which lead him to a piece of wisdom for anyone who is unsure of their next steps.
“For any young person out there who, like, doesn’t really know what they want to do, doesn’t really know kind of what their future looks like, it’s really scary. And I think prior to this year - I’m leaving, I didn’t really know, and I was really nervous about what the future looked like for me and just know like there’s so many options. There is like a whole world of experiences that you don’t even know you want yet. So just being open to all different kinds of experiences, all different kinds of passions and interests that you have, like you’ll find 100 when you thought you’re going to find one and follow that,” Sangret-Savalle said.
After graduation in May, Mario will be on his way to Germany.
