Need a "safety" choice -- accomplished with the oboe

binx
Thu, 14 Sep 2006 10:36:17 +0000

an undergrad orchestra and a graduate school orchestra



Technically, this isn’t exactly right. In previous years, they’ve had a “symphony” that is supposedly made up of first, second, and third year undergrads, and first year graduate students, and an “orchestra” which is supposed to be 4th year undergrad, and “continuing” graduate students.

The reality has been, though, that both orchestras are staffed as the result of blind auditions, and teacher input concerning strengths and needs of each student. Each concert was staffed differently, (and sometimes the individual pieces were staffed differently), and most students played in a cross-section of concerts. For instance, upper classmen and grads were often chosen for principal parts of the Symphony, where underclassmen might be given “easier” parts in the Orchestra. A piece might have a fantastically intricate violin part, requiring a high level of accomplishment, yet have a horn part with lots of rests and whole notes.

This year, they have removed the label “symphony” and have only “orchestras”. Nothing else has really changed - each concert continues to be individually staffed. Apparently there was an idea held by some (students, concert-goers, etc) that the “symphony” was a lesser group, and therefore people weren’t giving it the same degree of dedication. So they have removed the distinction, which was rather blurred anyway.

Their webpage still lists the separate orchestras, and makes it sound like students are in one or the other. It isn’t like that. Therefore, I’m not sure that there is a strong effort to keep a certain number of grads vs. undergrads. They all audition together, and I know the past couple of years in the horn dept, they’ve accepted enough to keep the whole dept the same size, but I think grad vs. undergrad numbers have flexed a bit.