The muffled sound of brass musicians practicing permeates the room in which French pianist and associate professor Marylene Dosse works.

Dosse, who is a petite, dark-haired woman and has traveled the globe playing piano, is the winner of numerous competitive awards, and has made over twenty recordings.

Even while teaching, Dosse often travels for concerts, recordings and seminars, and gave two concerts in France last semester. "She's a little nuts," said Suzanne Roy, professor of voice at the University, because she takes on a great deal, "but she can do it." Her students never suffer from her time away, Roy said.

Dosse has made over 20 recordings and many of them are uncommon. Some of the pieces had not been recorded before, such as the complete works of Saint-Saens. They are not very useful for performance but greatly add to her repertoire, Dosse said.

She said the University's excellent administration and the faculty in the School of Music, both of which she feels are important, are impressive. Because the administrators know what it is like to be performing, she said they are understanding and grant her a lot of freedom to travel and perform while she is teaching.

Dosse said she has seen a lot of differences between the way music is taught in France and the United States. In France, music education and performance are treated almost as different majors; they are taught by different educators and in different buildings. This creates a big gap between the two fields, and makes it difficult for students to transfer.

Even though she said it would be nice to see less overspecialization in France, here she said she does not see enough specialization. Serious instrumentalists in the United States do not practice nearly enough, or at an early enough age for performance level, she said.

Noting a recent decline in the number of piano and organ majors, Dosse credits this to the lonely nature of the life of a pianist.

"It's a very lonely job, because you practice by yourself, most of the time you play by yourself, you travel by yourself." It is not like playing in an orchestra where you usually are around other members of the group, she said.

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At the age of 4, Dosse discovered the piano and through the discipline of a good teacher and a supportive mother, she said she knew by the age of 7 that she would become a concert pianist. One of the integral parts of her early success she credits to her first teacher.

"I think it's very important that you get the best teacher possible when you start, because the start is going to determine all the habits -- all the success that you are going to have later," she said, speaking with a marked French accent. "I was lucky because this teacher was really excellent -- very difficult."

But working so hard while so young does have its drawbacks. Dosse was practicing two to three hours a day, and by the age of 8, traveling into Paris to study. She does have regrets.

Practicing so much "didn't give me much time to play or have fun or socialize, which I regret, I think, a little bit. You just kind of get used to being on your own," Dosse said.

After passing the rigorous entrance exam for the Paris Conservatory at 14, she studied there for six years, winning various prizes and scholarships.

One of these scholarships enabled Dosse to attend the summer music festival in Vienna, where she studied intensively for three weeks with three of the most respected pianists in Austria.

"I think that's probably the best remembrance I have of any study. I think it was the best learning experience, not only because the caliber of the students was really very high, but also the pianists were really very brilliant pianists," she said.

The festival was a haven for classical music lovers, ". . . to be surrounded by music 24 hours a day. It was the greatest singers and the greatest conductors." Dosse managed to attend the opera almost every evening for three weeks, she said.

Although Dosse loves all classical music, she said chamber music is her favorite. She said if she absolutely had to live with only two composers, they would be Schubert and Brahms.

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A tough decision faced Dosse before first coming to the United States. With her plane tickets already purchased and a position secured as assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Dosse said she was offered a position as an accompanist by the best manager in Paris.

Being an accompanist was something she said she had always wanted to do, and not taking this job was an error.

"It seems to me I would have been happier being an accompanist. (But) I can't complain, actually I did a lot of solo work, I did do concerts, I traveled all over the world in Europe, here, South America and Africa," she said.

After working for various University of Wisconsin campuses, the University of Indiana at Bloomington, and Muhlenberg College, she received a phone call "out of the blue" from Roy, which eventually brought her to Penn State.

Roy was not sure Dosse would be interested in interviewing with the University since she had been turned down once before for a lower level position. But Dosse did come again, and amazed the committee with her talent, Roy said.

"She's made out of music," Roy said. She said she was extremely impressed when Dosse played before the committee during her first application.

Roy and Dosse became acquaintances after Roy worked with her to make a televised recital. Although they had both been working at the University of Wisconsin at the same time, they never met until the first time Dosse came to Penn State.

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Dosse started a piano series while an artist-in-residence at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. She started the series with no budget, holding exchange programs. The series has grown, and is still strong under the direction of a friend who has taken it over she said.

It would be difficult for Dosse to return to France because she has cut all her ties there musically, she said. She said she had planned to return after her first few years in the United States, and tried to convince all her foreign friends that it was a good idea to return before it became too difficult. Ironically, all of the returned but she, she said. She said she no longer plans to return.

"I think I started to be kind of homesick, the excitement was wearing out. The students (at the University of Wisconsin) were not very good," she said.

After deciding to stay, she took a position as an artist-in-residence for seven University of Wisconsin campuses. This turned out to be a good experience, she said. It was at one of the campuses that she met her husband, William Peters, and the two were married after she spent a year in New York City. She now has two step-sons and one step-grandson.

The only drawback to the position was the weather, "The only thing I didn't like too much was the traveling in Wisconsin during the winter -- it was not too fun."

Dosse said she is happy living in State College. "As you get older you realize that you need a little more security. It's very nice to lead a Bohemian life, but there is a time when you should think about your future."

Dosse does not intend to leave Penn State, but also does not plan on anything permanent. She maintains, "You never know what life is made of."