Today, I am to receive my final paycheck as an adjunct faculty member of Benedictine College. I’ve held several roles since the fall of 2018 and enjoyed all of them. For the last three years, it’s been a single role as conductor of a major ensemble. The College needed to hire someone full-time with primary qualifications in another area, and that person is also slotted to cover what I’ve been doing. I am bringing full closure to my time with this institution. This post will document some good things and some neutral things.
And there will be more! Two more posts will follow:
- If you prefer not to deal in negatives, skip the following “Closure B” post, which might be a day or more in coming.
- There will then be a final “Closure C” post later; that will deal more in the particulars of the music and the conducting.
My take on the idea of a weblog (blog), virtually dictates that I spend some time on this. This time is a pretty big deal in my life, and I’m documenting it for posterity.
I tried to usher in good closure for myself and others by programming tremendous, great music for my last concert here. Not that I programmed weakly for other concerts (!), but this one was special and needed extra-fortified content. The program was “British Blast,” and there was a lot of big music. More important than the bigness, though, were the quality and variety. I programmed for strings alone, for orchestral winds and percussion, for a deserving student soloist, and for full orchestra. (More details will follow in the third post.) There was a lot of music, and the concert was perhaps 20% longer than optimum, with a good deal of technically demanding and musically mature material.
The ensemble music-making enterprise is about people and music. Speaking corporately first, I must compliment the group: The orchestra rose to the occasion of the demanding music. Also on the people front, I tried to pay new attention to some individual musicians who haven’t had as much attention because of where they sit in the group, or their personalities, or other factors. I enjoy teasing and did perhaps more of that this term. I think once or twice, someone didn’t know how to take the teasing, and I recognized that and backed off. Personally greeting the players is important, and I wish I’d done more of that, but I made greater efforts to greet people as they arrived.
I invited several people from my first stint here to return,¹ either as performers or as audience members, and a few were able to do that. I regretted that the chair who had first hired me was unable to be there in person. I also invited a few new music friends, programming a couple of pieces that called for extra players, such as euphonium, two extra horns, and an extra each in these sections: clarinet, trumpet, flute, and bassoon. I believe the orchestra was the largest ever to fill that stage. The harp has been absent through pretty much all my time here, but I invited a professional harpist, a music acquaintance for 20 years, and her playing was a great thing.
Pre-concert, I endeavored to plan more logistical details better than ever, and I think I succeeded. I also did something I’d never done before: I bought flora for the concert stage. Oddly enough, I was put in mind of my first higher-ed concert as director of music at a two-year college. A colleague who became a friend decorated the stage for me, because I have never thought of that as a thing. This time, I did have some flowers. Basically, I wanted to go out right, and go out big, before I went home.
Throughout my time here, I could not have asked for a better or more perfectly communicative person to work with than the the departmental administrative assistant. She was a gift in the middle of some very trying times and received mention in every printed concert program.
I’m grateful for the last significant conversation with the department chair, back in November. He and I had been pretty close at one time, but moved apart. This conversation was helpful in allowing me to feel relatively good at the tapering off of my service here.
Some student leadership was quite good. I think particularly of the Violin 1 and Violin 2 sections, led by Kathleen and Richard, respectively (and Isabel the previous year); and also the percussion section, led by Eli. Those students showed initiative, care, and persistence, not to mention very strong musical and technical capabilities. It’s extremely important for a wind conductor leading an orchestra to have a mutually trusting relationship with string players who can collaborate, advise, and lead. The other string sections had more leadership from non-students. (Historically, and sometimes inexplicably, there have been few student wind players.)
I had the best setup crew ever this year. This is such an important facet! Student workers, led by Mary this year, were responsible for setting up chairs and music stands. Percussion equipment is a daunting part of the setup, and that is usually managed by the percussionists, but there was some overlap, and that helped. Overall, it was the first year that I didn’t need to be concerned that the chairs and stands would be set in good position, well in advance of rehearsal time.
We rehearsed from 7:30-9:45 on Thursday evenings. Historically, this group had been dismissing by 9:30, but the class was on the schedule until 9:45. I typically used all that time (with a break in the middle) although I sometimes dismissed a portion of the group earlier and rehearsed a smaller group at the end. Not a single time did the players seem to begrudge staying a couple minutes late. I feel good about my respect of the players’ time. I think they must have sensed that I was sensitive to that, and even when they were fatigued, they persisted in every rehearsal to the end.
The apparent practice of some other major ensembles here was to wait until the 2nd week of a semester (or later) to begin rehearsing. There are always organizational tasks that can get in the way of music-making, but I always dug right in. It would have felt wrong not to take advantage of every possible rehearsal time—especially when there were only 13 or 14 rehearsals of working time over a period of about 4 months. We could not afford to waste a single Thursday night.
Sometimes the College breaks wreaked havoc with our learning-and-retention timeline, and this spring was particularly bad. There were only two weeks between spring break and Easter break, and then only two working rehearsals until the concert. As a result, we had to work extra hard during the early part of the term, so life would be easier as we took the final steps toward the concert.
The performance was actually a bit lackluster for me personally—owing, I think, to my methodical, almost stoic approach to responsibilities this time. I was determined and not overly emotional, although I could feel some odd things going on inside my soul. Thinking back generally over the previous performances, though, there were quite a few that felt exhilarating, and in each one, I felt the music was performed at 90+% of potential. (That’s saying a lot.)
I’m finalizing this post on a Thursday night. Not being at orchestra rehearsal—now for the 6th straight Thursday night—can feel as strange as a wedding-ring finger without its band. If I don’t fill this vacuum with another post in the fall, the empty feeling will come over me frequently, and sometimes with a vengeance. This reality looms large for me. I cannot emphasize it enough.
I will miss the performance goals, the teaching opportunities, and the activity and activeness. I will miss carrying around the scores! (More on preparation and score study in the third post.)
I will miss the shared laughs and the bright, attentive eyes. And I will miss the motivation—an attitude I perceived in so many of the players each week—to make music communally and excellently.
¹ I had the sense of having come full circle with this orchestra. I played with the group for two seasons and conducted it for two more in the early 2000s. In a real sense, new life began for me in that first time period, and in an equally real sense, a lot of life has concluded now. The final concert last month included one of the pieces that had been performed (not nearly as well back then!) in 2005.
Earnestly Speaking 