He strikes a key balance
This is one in a series of profiles showcasing some of Harvard’s stellar graduates. Drew Petersen sits comfortably at a piano, looks briefly at its 88 keys, shuts his eyes, positions his fingers, and plays from memory a complex piece by Frédéric Chopin. Petersen welcomes challenging adventures, musical and otherwise. He enrolled in Harvard’s Extension School at 14, while maintaining a demanding concert schedule. “I wanted to find a program with academic rigor and with a lot of flexibility to allow me to work around some of my performances and competitions,” said Petersen, a classically trained, professional pianist who will graduate this month from the School and from a two-year diploma program at Juilliard. The running joke in his family is that he has never graduated from anything, having jumped among public, private, and performing arts high schools in his search for the right academic challenge, and a schedule that could fit in with...