Lamar flute professor named Fulbright Scholar
Flutist Brielle Frost, associate professor of music at Lamar, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to teach flute at the Ingesund School of Music at Karlstad University in Arvika, Sweden, during the spring 2027 semester.
“My initial reaction was pure excitement,” Frost said. “I mean, I was elated. All the words you could think of. I was so thrilled.”
Frost said the experience is more than an opportunity to teach abroad. It is a chance to immerse herself in a new culture, learn from other musicians and bring new perspectives back to her students at Lamar University.
“I love to give back through my teaching,” she said. “I love to teach. I love to collaborate, and I love to be as creative as possible through music.”
Frost was inspired to study abroad by her former flute professor who participated in a year-long exchange program with a professor in Sweden.
“I had the opportunity to work with him for a year, and so I realized, ‘Oh, this is a possibility for me too,’” Frost said.
The idea was met with enthusiasm from her mentors who suggested looking into a fellowship, which led to her discovery of the Fulbright Scholar Program.
“The application process took several months, followed by months of waiting,” she said.
Frost learned she had advanced through the first round in December before receiving the final news in March.
“I am fully aware that I am in a really small kind of elite group of these scholars who are given this opportunity,” she said.
Frost said the program is an opportunity to represent the United States while creating relationships with people in another country.
“With the Fulbright, it’s also about being a really great ambassador for our country as well,” she said.
Frost said she will approach the experience as both a teacher and a student.
“I’m really excited to contribute with the knowledge that I have,” she said. “But I am equally excited to see their process and what they’re learning and what they’re studying, and how the education system and the process is.”
As well as teaching and studying, Frost said she is excited to immerse herself in the Scandinavian culture.
“I think music is a true window into a different culture,” she said. “It is the easiest and quickest way, and the most approachable and friendliest way, I think, to understand someone’s culture.”
Music can reveal how a culture’s traditions are passed down and how society influences the arts, Frost said.
“It’s kind of all really embedded in that culture,” she said. “You see how society and culture comes out of the arts.”
Although Frost is looking forward to the experience, she said she is also thinking about what she can bring home to Lamar.
“I’m really hoping to bring back different teaching ideas, different pedagogical ideas,” she said.
Frost said the Fulbright experience is an opportunity to continue growing as a musician, educator and individual.
“I really see this as a springboard as well as just building character,” she said.
The experience, ultimately, comes down to approaching something unfamiliar with an open mind, Frost said.
“If you go with the right mindset of positivity, curiosity and growth, you will only keep being better for it,” she said.
