As James Bennett began to perform Chopin’s Ballade No. 1, one of the judges tasked to critically score the pianist began to sit back and just listen, lost in a memory.
Technical skill and hours of practice got Bennett into the final round of the Charles Joray Piano Competition, but it was the emotion of his performance that put the University of Notre Dame senior in first place.
The judge later shared that her former piano teacher had played that same Chopin ballade for her. They’d since passed away, but the emotion Bennett put into the piece made the judge feel like her teacher was here again, if only for a few measures.
“Creating those special moments is just so valuable,” Bennett said. “And the fact that I can do it — I should continue doing it.”
The music and economics major has been playing the piano since he was 6 years old. Though he isn’t planning to pursue a full-time career in music, he knew he wanted it to be part of his education.
“I always wanted to stick with music because I have this talent for playing, and I don’t want it to go to waste,” Bennett said.
Through both his music and economics classes, he’s doing more than practicing an instrument or preparing for a career — he’s diving beneath the surface and finding out why things are the way they are, whether that’s a Clementi piece or inflation.
Outside of class, Bennett certainly made the most of his musical gift in his time at Notre Dame, playing for the Notre Dame Symphony Orchestra, Pasquerilla East Musical Co., and campus church choirs. His ability to sight-read new music also makes him a capable accompanist.
As a soloist, Bennett shines with romantic and contemporary pieces by composers such as Claude Debussy, Frédéric Chopin, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. This kind of music allows the musician to be more creative and expressive, something nurtured by Bennett’s piano mentor, Department of Music faculty member John Blacklow.
“He just really goes into the musicality aspect and not so much the worrying about every note and every little thing in the score,” Bennett said. “It allowed me to become a lot less anxious about music.”
Unlikely harmonies
Bennett found his emotional interpretation of music has improved by examining its inner workings.
Music students take music history classes, learning about influential composers and the eras they lived in. Social trends influence music production and the creation of new genres, and this has been the case for as long as people have been making music.
“The history classes help contextualize the time period when these pieces were written, and I feel like that just gives you more room for interpretation,” Bennett said.
Students also take music theory classes, which cover the rules and concepts that are the foundation of musical construction. Bennett said learning theory helped him understand why harmonies sound a certain way and make listeners feel a certain way.
But when he took a course called Chromatic Harmony, he learned how to break every music rule.
“I don’t really like those rules to begin with,” Bennett said. “Music shouldn’t be constrained by theoretical rules.”
He’s always loved improvising, and learning how to both follow and flout music rules turned his practice session experiments into solid compositions.
Although economics doesn’t typically allow that same free-spiritedness, Bennett’s two majors aren’t so dissonant. While economics has him analyzing market data instead of cadences, what matters for him is the chance to go beneath the surface.
Bennett was initially drawn to computer science because of its opportunities for hands-on learning and the way it pulls back the curtain on the technological infrastructure of our world. However, he found there are plenty of theories and models for him to dive into in economics.
He especially enjoyed the class Data Analytics and Economic Evaluation for Social Impact, which taught him how to use statistical analysis software to make viable economic predictions.
“If you can effectively do that, then you’re, you know, telling the future, which I think is pretty cool,” he said.
For his final class project, Bennett used a difference-in-differences analysis to compare drug usage in Oregon and Washington after Oregon decriminalized personal use of small amounts of any drug in 2021. With this change, Oregon also set up help centers for people struggling with addiction, and Bennett wanted to find out if the state’s new policies and programs were effective in preventing fatal drug overdoses.
He found no difference between Washington and Oregon, but the point of the project wasn’t the answer but rather learning how to find it.
“While it was limited in that there are all these different moving variables, I was able to get something,” he said. “Now I have this skill that I can apply and do big things with.”
Cultivating a diverse skill set
While he found economics invigorating, Bennett kept his love for computer science and tried to take as many classes as possible.
“Computer science is my biggest passion because everything is run by technology, and to most people, it’s like magic,” he said. “But if you’re able to decipher that magic, you become a magician.”
“God has a plan for me, and I’ve put so much time into learning all these different things. I know that it’s going to pay off.”
- James Bennett ’25
Considering his drive to decipher, it’s no surprise Bennett’s favorite class was Systems Programming. Beginner computer science courses teach students how to write code, but Systems Programming goes into how code turns into computing — how data is stored, how networks work, how compilers run, etc.
“If you’re going to take any CS class, definitely take that one,” Bennett said.
Though he wishes he could’ve taken more computer science courses, Bennett knows that what he has learned will open many doors.
“Now I have an even broader skill set than what I planned to have,” Bennett said. “With employers now, it’s mostly about if you can show that you can use these skills, and not necessarily just about the degree itself.”
As much as economists may try to predict what’s next, no one can sight-read the future. Bennett plans to pursue a career in data analytics and feels prepared for whatever comes his way.
“God has a plan for me, and I’ve put so much time into learning all these different things,” he said. “I know that it’s going to pay off.”
