One of the most interesting experience of the entire semester occurred yesterday afternoon when the entire full time music faculty – minus Dimitri and Peter – listened to a succession of 13 of our finest musicians compete for a place in the upcoming Honors Recital. . . which is intended to be a showcase for the best that the music department has to offer. In the past, the program was put together in rather informal fashion with no particular process in place to insure quality or to encourage a wide range of our best music students to be included. But that changed this time around and I, for one, am thrilled.
The process actually began with the voice teachers assembling last Friday afternoon and hearing about a dozen aspiring singers in a preliminary round from which we selected four singers to advance to the main auditions which were yesterday. The 13 musicians we heard included, besides the four singers, two pianists, two flutists, a bass clarinetist, two organists, a xylophonist, and a guitarist. They each had to give a spoken introduction to their piece- and then had 7 minutes with which to perform a portion of whatever they hoped to present on the recital itself. Each of us listening were instructed to rank the musicians best to worst, in the hopes that we would come to a fairly tidy consensus as to who was most deserving to be included in the recital.
First of all, what a delightful way to spend two hours- listening to a baker’s dozen of our best music students strutting their stuff and in several cases knocking our socks off. Especially impressive was the xylophonist, who did an amazing, exciting piece backed up by two of his fellow percussionists playing drums. At the other end of the dynamic spectrum was the classical guitarist who played so musically and sensitively. (You could hear a pin drop.) But everyone did a fine job, and the toughest part was in trying to sort out who was 1, who was 2, who was 7, who was 11, etc. That would have been tough enough with 13 singers- but comparing this array of instruments in such a wide range of repertoire was like comparing apples to oranges to bananas to kumquats. But what a fun challenge for us!
Actually, that moment of truth when we revealed our rankings was quite interesting. What our department chair decided was that we would compile our cumulative rankings right then and there, and out loud in front of one another – which was rather delicate in that we were in effect passing judgment on one another’s students. So we would begin with Candice Contrivance, and would go around the room with each of us announcing where we had her ranked out of the 13. I’ll never forget what it felt like as we announced our rankings for the first musician; as we went around our circle (there were seven of us) you heard “three. . . five. . . two . . . seven. . . three. . . nine.” We were all over the map and it made you wonder how this was going to shape out and if our numbers were always going to be this “chaotic.” But when we got to the student who ultimately scored highest, you heard “one . . . one . . . one . . . one . . . four . . . one. . .” etc. And similarly, the bottom musicians inspired rather consistent rankings from all of us. But for those in the middle, we were rather mixed in our appraisals, which of course is just fine. It’s to be expected when you’re dealing with something like music – and especially when each of us might be more heavily influenced by matters such as “did they memorize their piece or not?” “how long and how difficult was their piece of music?” “have they just or are they about to give a recital besides the honors recital?” and that sort of thing.
A couple of things were really gratifying- and one of them was that once we had compiled the numbers and figured out who our top people were, the discussion that followed about who exactly to allow on to the honors recital was free- wheeling and featured different yet equally valuable perspectives from each of us. It felt like we had seven smart and good people in that circle and not a single person was out for their own private agenda – but rather each of us was most anxious that we do this right.
And it felt like we really didn’t have to be terribly squeamish when it came to express our opinions, even when they might be critical comments that might serve to ultimately to keep a given student off of the recital. As is nearly always the case with the music faculty, we spoke freely and respectfully and that’s of course what makes for a great department with strong comradeship. I stood in that circle and was just so proud to be part of that group of music educators and professionals. I was also very relieved that I could stand in that circle and announce to them when the time came that I had ranked my student who auditioned at “#2” – something that would have been incredibly scary to do in other contexts with other colleagues more prone to think the worst of each other. We in the music faculty just know that we are all on the same essential page. . . which meant that I could announce that I had ranked my own student high without the slightest worry that it might be seen as favoritism. And likewise, it was perfectly fine that some of my colleagues ranked this student lower than I did. Heck, we were all wrestling with one tough dilemma- how to rank these varied musicians, all of who were really good. (A few years back, we would not have had this kind of talent gathered together – not even if we had gathered the “music stars of the last ten years.” These auditions really underscored in the clearest possible fashion just how far we’ve come and how high a standard our best students are setting for themselves and for each other.
pictured: Five of my music colleagues: (counter clockwise) Corinne Ness, Mark Petering, Woodrow Hodges, Jim Ripley and Amy Haines. Our piano prof, Jane Livingston, was also there but sitting just out of camera range. We are right in the midst of tabulation.