September 2005 Special Report
"The Great Divide"

Are we training orchestral musicians for our century—or the last one? Read the report from SYMPHONY, the bi-monthly magazine of the American Symphony Orchestra League.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MyAuditions,

Awesome article!! just make sure that you have Acrobat reader installed to access the page. I wasn't aware of symphony magazine and its resources on its web site. good resource to link to.

I've downloaded this arcticle. It is so long but I will take time to read it very closely. I will post my comments thereafter.

Good article. And it isn't only orchestral instrumentalists that are being short changed by narrowly focused training. As a classical guitarist and instructor, I can attest to the fact that many players graduate with only the skills needed to fulfill a solo career. Notice, I said fulfill, not develope. And, given the fact that solo careers are close to non-existent, those few that have any chance at all need to know how to create performance opportunities for themselves.

This is still not sufficient. Guitarist need to know how to read broadway charts, which jazz players do easily and classical players not at all. They must also be prepared to work with an ever changing technology, have an understanding of business, and be able to intelligently interpret the very confusing copyright laws.

But the most valuable skill a guitarist can have is the ability to teach. When my students tell me that they are thinking about majoring in music in college, I always make it a point to have a frank discussion with them and their parents about what practical options are available in the music field. Majoring in guitar performance is not really one of the stronger options. Majoring in music education is an excellent option. I also inform them of the various other options such as music therapy, music business, etc.

Our colleges and their instructors are not always as careful with their students careers as they ought to be. A student of mine who just started his first year as a music education major at a major university has just been talked into switching to a performance major by his guitar instructor and the department chair. This is a university with a fairly new guitar program, and, to date, no guitar performance majors. The student does not have what it takes for a solo career, and should already be much further along as a player than he presently is if he were to develope one. It is my opinion that his practical needs are being subverted in favor of the department's desire to build a strong performance program.

[The article appears in print in the July-August issue (56/4) of Symphony magazine.]

The crux of the matter - a point alluded to early on in the Symphony article - is that orchestral playing (particularly for strings) is still considered a second-class activity in most conservatories.

This is one of the several reasons I chose to do my performance degree at a university rather than the conservatory.

That said, I encountered similar, narrow attitudes, even within my music department. There was a definite hierarchy (nurtured by the faculty as much as students): performers and composers; who were closely followed, in this case, by musicologists/academics; with a huge gulf before (heaven forbid)...high school music teaching or studio teaching.

This was not only sad but irresponsible. To promote music education as a second-best option for "failed" performers or composers does a huge disservice to the status and quality of music teaching in schools. In many respects one needs to be a _better_ musician and a more skilled communicator to succeed in that role.

But even sadder was the way the hierarchy completely ignored all other areas of the music industry in which deeply musical and knowledgable people are needed. No one at my university (or the conservatory) talked about how the talented music student (tms) with a real gift for writing might actually be able to make a career as a program annotator or arts journalist; or how the tms with a gift for putting together intriguing recital programs and then promoting them herself might actually be a real asset in arts administration or radio as a programmer; or how the tms with a superb ear and great discernment for interpretative nuances might make a tremendous career producing recordings; and the list goes on.

In retrospect - although I had to discover all those possibilities for myself, after I'd graduated - I was glad my university music department never mentioned them. Because I'm sure they would have been relegated to the list of second- or third-best options, along with teaching. As it was, I was lucky enough to encounter gifted people working in these fields who both inspired me and helped me realize my own particular talents, which were in fact in areas other than solo or even orchestral instrumental playing.

But back to the article: until we can get out of that terrible pattern of seeing a solo career as the be-all and end-all of practical music studies, then we're still going to see a lot of disaffected orchestral string sections, no matter what extra subjects they get to study at college or in the conservatory. And the task of breaking that pattern rests first with instrumental teachers, and second with the support that is given to nurturing high-level orchestra activity (not just bands) in schools.

Meanwhile, at the college and conservatory level we have to address what it is that performance students spend their time on. Is it really sensible to encourage the very fine but not out-of-this-world stunning flutist to spend months preparing his Ibert Concerto for performance with the conservatory orchestra? Might it not be better for that student to spend the same months working on orchestral repertoire and audition technique and then be given the opportunity to rehearse a good portion of that repertoire with the conservatory orchestra?

It seems to be assumed that if you're accomplished enough to play the standard rep concertos and solo recital repertoire you can play in an orchestra. But orchestral players know there's more to their craft than that.

This topic has been discussed as nauseaum on myauditions for quite some time. I agree with most of the author's comments. Musicians entering conservatories need to wake up and stop being so naive as to think they will be the next great soloist of the world.

Most schools including Juilliard are starting to understand that they just can't churn out soloists like they use to because the classical market has changed dramatically in the last several years. They are learning to re-tune their programs (like Eastman, Oberlin) to get students focused on a performance career in other capacities like with an orchestra.