Today's YSO: playing in perfect harmony

I am a musician. I know from personal experience that Brahms is a tough composer for musicians, especially young musicians, to play. Admittedly, I had never heard the Yale Symphony Orchestra. I attended last Saturday's opening concert with plenty of reservations--I doubted that any undergraduate orchestra could play the very technically difficult Third Symphony of Brahms, not to mention the arguably harder "Dance of the Seven Veils" from Richard Strauss's Salome, without severely detracting from the musicality of those works.

To my surprise and delight, these qualms proved unfounded. As I sat in Woolsey Hall reviewing the performance, I noticed that my notes were overwhelmingly positive. I gaped at my scribblings like a codfish: I, gushing about a performance of a Brahms symphony, a symphony that has been recorded and played hundreds of times by the best orchestras in the world? I, who pride myself on my musical snobbery, complimenting a student orchestra? Well, I said to myself, this just won't do. I started listening more closely. To my amazement, the more critically I listened, the more I found to praise. I was struck by the clarity of the sound, the important lines coming through the texture, and the nearly perfect balance. I was amazed by the unity of interpretation with which the orchestra played; Maestro Shinik Hahm convincingly conveyed his extremely lyrical interpretation, one that concentrated much more on long, expansive phrases than on barlines. The YSO played these pieces incredibly well, better than some professional orchestras I have heard.

The concert, in addition to being an overall delight, featured some wonderful individual moments. I was won over by the warm sound of the violins in the second movement of the Brahms piece. At the end of the same movement, the three trombones managed to play with as much balance as I've ever heard the instrument played. First horn player Lisa Con-way, PC '01, did a fantastic job with her solo in the scherzo, and the cello section shone in its big moments during both the third and fourth movements.

So what's the YSO's secret? How did it pull off such a seemingly impossible feat?

The YSO's success, members maintain, depends on its togetherness. "The ideal environment for music-making is a group of friends," YSO assistant manager Justin Urcis, CC '98, explained. "That's just how the best music is made." Indeed, with activities ranging from "symphony supper" to "symphony soccer," the group seems to be nothing less than a family of 100 people. Pamela Bookman, PC '01, expanded on this idea: "There is something about the Yale community which is inspired, and this feeds into Yale Symphony Orchestra. People give and take from their experiences here; it's more than just showing up to rehearsal every week." The effects can be heard in the YSO's performance. "We all sense it together," Andrew Guenzer, DC '01, said.

Of course, there is more to YSO than just group spirit. This year's core freshmen may be the strongest the YSO has had in years. As the YSO President Rob Meyer, ES '98, explained, "last year was the first year we worked hard on recruiting. We wanted to show the pre-frosh that we're serious about music here." Apparently the tactics of Meyer and his orchestra have worked--the recruits have high praise for their orchestra.

"YSO's reputation precedes it," Andrew Koehler, CC '01, said. "The level of both technical skill and artistic expression here is so much higher than it is at other universities." Indeed, when I asked the orchestra's frosh to compare the YSO with other college orchestras, their most frequent response was, "It's just better." While potential music majors will likely attend a conservatory, high school seniors who might not want to major in music, but are looking for a good college ensemble, often come to Yale. Because the YSO is established and accomplished, it can recruit good musicians; and because the YSO attracts talented musicians, it continues to perform at the highest level. As Bookman explained, the YSO's high quality "is both a cause and result of its reputation."

The YSO is trying to put its reputation to use in other ways as well. While it is obviously one of the foundations of Yale's musical community, it still manages to remain what Park called "one of Yale's best kept secrets." In order to combat this position, the YSO is now trying to expand its audience, and at the same time, expand classical music audiences in general. I doubt that anyone who ate lunch at Commons last week avoided being harassed by an orchestra member shouting, "Get your YSO season pass! You can bursur bill it!" This aggressive attempt to publicize the orchestra is, as Urcis put it, an attempt to "make music easy to access."

The YSO wants to catch Yalies in the "experimental mindset" which is so characteristic of college students, and get them to expand their musical horizons. In an age where all that one reads about classical music concerns its apparent demise, this is a noble endeavor. The YSO is trying to dispel the popular image of classical music as a boring, elitist art form.

"The YSO is a really good introduction to classical music; it's a great blend of professional quality and student energy," Meyer said. "This is really the best time for students to hear great classical music, maybe in their lives." Acculturating Yale students to classical music has become a crusade of sorts for the YSO. So far, that crusade has met with a moderate amount of success; Saturday night's concert drew the largest crowd ever for a YSO opening night.

At a liberal arts school, even a world-reknowned institution like Yale, it is rare to find a performance ensemble capable of competing with the world's best. Through energetic recruiting, an unbreakable group spirit and a wealth of talent, the YSO has become such an ensemble.

Back to A & E...