In response to increased student interest in conducting, Professor Andrew Hauze introduced the Lab Orchestra in the fall of 2016 as a way to give those students practice. This spring, they performed at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) thanks to Concert and Production Manager Jenny Honig’s efforts to find off-campus performance opportunities for the group. This semester, Swarthmore College Lab Orchestra co-conductors Andrew Kim ’18 and Shira Samuels-Shragg ’20 have had the experience of conducting not only the Lab Orchestra, but also the Jasper String Quartet, a Philadelphia-based group of professional musicians.

“Having a lab orchestra like this is very rare for an undergraduate program,” Kim says. “This is usually a model for graduate conducting programs. I don’t know of any other conducting opportunities even at bigger universities that undergrad students can get that parallels this kind of experience… it’s remarkable what we as a small department can do and the development that has happened in the past couple years thanks to Andrew and Jenny.”

 According to Shragg, the rehearsals with the Lab Orchestra have allowed her to explore different interpretations of the pieces because she can ask the group to perform the piece in different ways. “You get the score, you go through it, and you try to figure out what everything means and what ideas you want to bring to it,” Shragg says. “The perfect situation is that you have such a strong image and understanding of how you want the piece to sound that you can simultaneously hear the orchestra, what they’re playing, and the idealized version you have in your head, and bring the orchestra to meet your vision for the piece. What’s fun with Lab Orchestra is because…it’s literally like a lab, we get to play around, whereas you could never walk into an L.A. [Philharmonic] rehearsal and say ‘oh, I’d like to try this passage three different ways.’ In this setting you can do that, we have done that.”

Kim says that conducting for professional musicians has facilitated the improvement of both the student conductors and musicians. “There’s more of a direct feedback with musicians have been playing in orchestras for a long time, so they can give pointed tips that work really well both for the players and us too,” he says. “I’ve just found that everything that they say clicks with both the musicians and me a lot.” Though the group gives feedback, Kim is still able to assert his own creative agency in the pieces that he conducts. “In my two semesters of working with them, I’ve found the space that I need to still be that leader,” he says. “Even though they’re much more accomplished musicians than I am, they’re good about still giving me that space and allowing me to do what I need to do.”

According to Shragg, the Jasper String Quartet prepares her for her career path as a conductor. “It’s different, but it’s great practice because anything that we get to conduct in the real world, that’s how it’s going to be,” Shragg says.

This weekend, Shragg and Kim will debut their holiday repertoire—featuring Sir Edward Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro, Covelli’s Christmas Concerto in G minor, Op. 5, No. 8, and “Winter” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons—at the PAFA rotunda on December 3 at 2:00 P.M. and during the second half of the Fetter Chamber Music Concert on December 2 at 8 P.M. The Jasper String Quartet will be featured in the Elgar pieces as well as performing solos in the Covelli. Kim took the Jasper String Quartet’s suggestion of the Elgar pieces because of the beauty of the music as well as the late Romantic-era style. “I think it’s a challenging piece for our group but they’ve really kind of risen to the challenges of this piece,” Kim says.

Shragg, on the other hand, will conduct the Vivaldi and Corelli pieces. She was inspired to conduct Vivaldi’s “Winter” after hearing it played during her Music Theory class. Hauze suggested the Corelli as her first piece to conduct “because unlike the Elgar, it’s not super dense. It’s still beautiful and there’s a lot to explore there but it’s more manageable,” Shragg says. The Christmas Concerto was composed to follow the story of Jesus’s birth.

The common thread that ties the pieces that both Shragg and Kim have chosen for their fall repertoire is nature. The Elgar piece an English pastoral, the Corelli has a movement called “pastorale,” and the Vivaldi has its own corresponding poem that includes lines like “shivering, frozen mid the frosty snow in biting, stinging winds; running to and fro to stamp one’s icy feet, teeth chattering in the bitter chill.” Both hope that Swarthmore students who attend their performance will be inspired by the wonder of nature, without having to feel the “teeth-chattering,” “stinging” winter weather.

“[The element of nature] is something that’s close to Swarthmore students because we go to school in an arboretum,” Kim said “I hope that at a particularly busy time of the semester it can help people to take a break and even if they’re not outside in cold nature, they can experience nature kind of vicariously in our pieces.”

Bayliss Wagner ’21

On Sunday, November 19th, the Swarthmore College Jazz Ensemble will perform in Lang Concert Hall. The concert begins at 7:30 and will feature the 21-piece student ensemble. They will perform a cross-section of music from the Great American Songbook, Latin jazz, big band standards and modern rock. Andrew Neu has been the conductor of the ensemble since 2014 and continues the long tradition of big band jazz at Swarthmore.

The program begins with the jazz standard “In a Mellow Tone,” composed by Duke Ellington. This arrangement was written by saxophonist Oliver Nelson and recorded by the Buddy Rich Big Band. It features freshman trumpeter, Owais Noorani-Kamtekar. The appropriately titled “Kids Are Pretty People,” by Thad Jones, was originally composed to be performed in the tiny jazz clubs of New York City. This performance features Sam Gardner on trombone. “What is This Thing Called Love” was composed by Cole Porter and arranged by conductor Andrew Neu. This up-tempo treatment features Vaughn Parts on alto saxophone and Josh Freier on tenor saxophone. Josh is again featured on the jazz ballad “Misty,” a tune made famous by Johnny Mathis. The first half wraps up with a very atypical piece for jazz ensemble. Originally recorded by the rock band Radiohead, “Bodysnatchers” has been adapted for big band by Fred Sturm. It was commissioned by the Lawrence University Jazz Ensemble and features Nathan Anderson on soprano saxophone, Sumi Onoe on piano, and Max Marckel on baritone saxophone.

The second half begins with “Cottontail,” another Duke Ellington piece, this one arranged by Duke himself. Olivia Gubler takes the lead on tenor sax. “Lament” is a haunting ballad composed by trombonist J.J. Johnson, and features Ben Hejna and the entire trombone section. Eric Chen plays a Debussy-inspired solo interlude on piano in the middle of the piece. Continuing with another intimate piece by Thad Jones, “Tip Toe” is based on the chord progression to “I Got Rhythm” in the less standard key of Ab. It features the saxophone section up front and a challenging trombone and bass soli featuring Derek Kinsella on the bass. Audiences will also hear solos from Owais, Josh, and Nathan, this time on alto saxophone.

The finale of the concert is an epic Latin jazz piece by trumpeter Arturo Sandoval called “A Mis Abuelos.” This tribute to his grandparents naturally features the trumpet section, along with Dakota Gibbs on guitar. Seth Stancroft drives it to the end with an open drum solo.

This year, the Department of Music and Dance is very excited to host jazz singer Janis Siegel at Swarthmore. She is a founding member of the musical group Manhattan Transfer and a multiple Grammy-award winner. On February 11, she will lead a workshop and perform a concert with pianist John DiMartino, bassist Gerald Veasley, and Andrew Neu on saxophone. She will join the Swarthmore College Jazz Ensemble for a special concert on April 7. This is a great opportunity to hear a world-renowned musician perform with the talented jazz students of Swarthmore College.

At 8:00 P.M. on Nov. 18 in Lang Concert Hall, the Swarthmore College Wind Ensemble, conducted by Professor Andrew Hauze, will bring its audience back to the early 20th century–back to the time of piano four-hands played in British and American homes, of ragtime in bars and brothels and dance halls, and of charismatic folk singers.

The hour-long concert will open with Lincolnshire Posy, an experimental fantasia by Australian composer Percy Grainger. Each of the six movements of the Lincolnshire Posy represents a different folk song that Grainger heard in his tour around the small villages of Lincolnshire. The folk songs memorialize historical events, including an unresolved feud between friends and the story of a missing sailor, once thought dead, returning home to his betrothed.

“In the music, it’s really interesting for the performer to see, ‘Okay, how’s Grainger taking this story and reimagining it in the way that he writes for the instruments?’” Hauze said. “Percy Grainger is not a household name, particularly in America, but he wrote some of the most original music you’ll hear. It has very traditional material so it’s very approachable—there’s a tune, you’ll get that—but at the same time it goes in these directions…when you listen to it and then you step back from it, it takes a moment to fully realize what you’ve heard.”

The second half of the concert will begin with dances composed by Antonín Dvořák. Dvořák’s mentor, Johannes Brahms, had written wildly successful Hungarian dances and suggested that Dvořák do the same. “These composers are mostly writing symphonies and very serious chamber music and in some cases opera, and these are kind of prestige things, but they’re not necessarily big moneymakers,” Hauze said. Some of Dvořák’s most popular and lucrative pieces were the Slavonic dances he then wrote, inspired by his home, the Czech lands. They were piano four-hands duets performed for family and friends as a favorite pastime of middle-class Europeans and Americans in the early 20th century.

In addition, the wind ensemble will perform “Danzon,” a Cuban-inspired piece from Leonard Bernstein’s score for a ballet called Fancy Free. “[“Danzon”] is also a little homage to Bernstein, because he’s entering his centennial year,” Hauze said. “He’s also one of my favorite composers, and wind ensemble in particular plays a lot of Bernstein. It’s really well suited to the group.”

The closing piece of the concert is “The Thriller,” a ragtime piano piece composed by May Aufderheide that Hauze arranged for wind and percussion instruments. According to Hauze, Aufderheide and her contemporary Julia Lee Niebergall were especially notable as a female composers from Indianapolis. “They weren’t in New York, they weren’t in one of the major metropolises, and they were women, and ragtime was dominated by male composers, both black and white,” Hauze said.  “They wrote some great rags but they’re mostly kind of forgotten these days, and I really like to play them on the piano, so I thought it would be fun to start making some arrangements for wind ensemble.”

The link between the varied compositions chosen for the concert is that none were written as concert pieces; they were intended to be sung or danced along to. The lively and lighthearted rhythm of the concert may just make it hard to stay sitting down.

Bayliss Wagner ’21

Student musicians from the Elizabeth Pollard Fetter Chamber Music Program will perform three concerts in the upcoming months. The Elizabeth Pollard Fetter Music Program began in 1975 as the “Pollard Scholarship Funds,” with an initial contribution from Elizabeth Pollard Fetter ’25 in memory of her mother, Emilie Garrett Pollard ’93. The program has evolved several times since its conception, first granting scholarships for string quartets in the 1970s and eventually reaching its present form in 2001. The program currently helps fund the coaching of several chamber music groups. Students are required to audition, but as Fetter faculty advisor Dr. Michael Johns cautions, “[the] Program does not exist to discourage playing, it is here to share the beauty of collective music making with as many willing students as possible.”

Fetter student musicians come from a diverse background of musical styles and a broad range of experience but once a group is formed, Dr. Johns says, the expectation is the same for everyone: play your best, prepare your part, grow with the ensemble, and contribute.” In addition to their coaching, each Fetter group must conduct a one-hour, student-led rehearsal each week. As Dr. Johns emphasizes, “The students are not merely encouraged to take ownership, they must take ownership if the music is to come alive. Chamber music is conversation, not a top-down structure.”

The first program will be held on November 17th at 8:00pm in the Lang Concert Hall, and will feature the Swarthmore College Gospel Choir, a student piano composition, cello sonata, piano four-hands, and a piano quartet (piano, violin, viola, and cello). The program includes pieces by Johannes Brahms, Samuel Barber, and Antonín Dvořák, among others.

The second program will be held on December 1st and is part of the Eugene Lang Celebration. Dr. Johns says that while the Eugene Lang Celebration did not directly influence the program, “the student performers are aware that it is an honor to be on this concert and that they represent generations of Swarthmore students, faculty, and community members who have benefitted from Eugene Lang’s leadership and generosity.” Mr. Lang has made it possible for a great deal of students to pursue their passions in the arts, and the Fetter performers undoubtedly embody his vision of a rigorous, collaborative environment in which diverse musical styles can converge to create something meaningful. This concert is more focused on vocals and will include a vocal quartet, opera scenes, a soprano-piano repertoire (including one piece by the soprano herself), and a piano quartet.

The final program, held on December 2nd, will include three student composer’s string quartets, Renaissance vocal music, a string quartet, and the Swarthmore College Lab Orchestra with student conductors. Student conducting is an incredibly important part of Swarthmore’s music program that permeates virtually all of the performing arts on campus. For example, Shira Samuels-Shragg ‘19 was recently the Music Director for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a job that combines orchestral conducting with dance and musical theater. To have a concert that features student conductors heavily befits their importance, and that of the musicians’, to Swarthmore’s performing arts community as a whole.

In addition to the many things that make the Fetter Music Program special, most groups within the program are taught by an outside professional musician that coaches the group throughout the rehearsal process. Swarthmore Music Chair Thomas Whitman ‘82 appreciates this attribute of the program in particular: “these coaches typically have particular musical expertise that is not present in the core Music Faculty, so Fetter enhances and deepens the overall curriculum of our Department.” He thinks that “Fetter is an under-appreciated gem that exemplifies what is best about the Swarthmore College experience,” molding an already-talented group of musicians into valuable contributors to the larger music world through rigorous practice and a deep intellectual engagement in their material. Dr. Johns agrees, adding that the world we live in now has a need for chamber music that many people probably do not realize: “Chamber music–the art of intimate musical conversation–is a vehicle that allows performers and listeners to experience their full humanity. It has never been more necessary. Students playing chamber music is enormously encouraging because they are the future and they will bring the qualities reinforced through chamber music–cooperation, respect for tradition, increased expressive and concentration capacity–with them into our fast-moving world.”

All of the concerts are free and open to the public

Gabriel Hearn-Desautels ’20

This fall’s Swarthmore College Orchestra concert will be one for the books. Each semester, the orchestra graces the community with a culminating musical performance as a result of their many rehearsals and efforts, but rarely is the orchestra joined by such musical greatness as in this upcoming concert, featuring David Kim as guest violinist. David Kim has studied violin from the age of three, receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Juilliard School, and is now the concertmaster for the Philadelphia Orchestra. He has received accolades from the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and will perform with the Swarthmore Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.

The Swarthmore Department of Music and Dance has a long relationship with David Kim, who has previously given solo recitals and master classes at the college.  Kim will also return to the college in the spring to play a Bach Concerto alongside the Swarthmore Lab Orchestra and lead a violin master class. He last performed with the Orchestra in 2013, so current students will now have the opportunity to hear him for the first time. Andrew Hauze, conductor of the Swarthmore College Orchestra, remembers his last concert with high regards. “Those of us involved will never forget the power and beauty of that performance,” says Hauze. “It is such a great experience for our students to get to play alongside one of the greatest violinists playing today. Our students always give intensely committed and exciting performances, and the energy will be even higher with our collaboration with David Kim.”

In addition to the featured Tchaikovsky Concerto, this semester’s set list includes two pieces from English operas: the overture to The Wreckers and “The Walk to the Paradise Garden” from A Village Romeo and Juliet. Both songs are rarely performed; Hauze had to obtain the score for The Wreckers from a UK library, which he newly engraved for future orchestral performances. However, Hauze considers his efforts worth the reward of exposing the community to such music. “I am especially excited that we are playing the overture,” he says. “The music is magnificent, with lush harmonies, striking themes, and wonderfully colorful orchestration.” The program features Romantic themes and, Hauze notes, should please anyone who enjoys beautiful, sweeping orchestral sounds. “To get to hear such moving music in such an intimate space should be a real treat for our audience.”

The Swarthmore College Orchestra’s fall concert, featuring David Kim, will be held on November 12th at 7:30 PM in Lang Concert Hall. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit https://www.swarthmore.edu/music/concerts-events.

                             Maya Kikuchi ’20

Swarthmore Music Department’s newest faculty member, Professor Lei Ouyang Bryant, is no stranger to small liberal arts colleges—this is her fourteenth year of teaching at one. However, her experiences as both a teacher and musician stretch far beyond that scope. As an ethnomusicologist specializing in East Asia and Asian America, she has also traveled to California, Ethiopia, and Taiwan to teach piano, violin, music, English, and dance to age groups spanning preschool to adult.

Professor Bryant’s musical background is as diverse and extensive as her teaching experiences. She studied violin, piano, and ballet throughout childhood and college, and learned Chinese music and dance growing up in her local Chinese American community in Minnesota. She also took up Taiko drumming during a semester abroad in Japan. After her undergraduate studies, she spent two years traveling and teaching, which deepened her interests in ethnomusicology. Says Professor Bryant, “I examine issues of music and memory, identity, politics, race and ethnicity, popular culture, and social justice. Ethnomusicology combines my interests in music, culture, and research.” This year, she will teach “Music Cultures of the World,” “Taiko & the Asian American Experience,” and “Music, Race, and Class,” and is currently co-directing the Music Department’s new Chinese Music ensemble.

Professor Bryant attended a small liberal arts college for undergraduate studies, and highly values the relationships she had with professors and peers in shaping her personal and professional life. When asked about teaching at Swarthmore, she responds, “I am honored to be able to work with undergraduate students in so many different facets of their lives. There is a very long list of reasons why I was interested in coming to Swarthmore, and at the top is the College’s strong commitment to access and civic engagement along with the diverse and highly motivated student body.” Professor Bryant believes her field of ethnomusicology is an ideal fit for a small liberal arts school because of the interdisciplinarity of the subject, and she looks forward to building connections with other courses and professors. “It is incredibly exciting to join a department of faculty to share a deep commitment to students as well as their own professional work as scholars and artists.”

Maya Kikuchi ’20

Photo by Gary Gold

“What might seem the most innocuous music is often the most avant-garde,” writes Ted Gordon on Gunther Schuller’s 1962 oeuvre “Journey into Jazz,” which Chamber Orchestra First Editions (COFE) will perform on Oct. 6 at Lang Concert Hall. Former Congressman and longtime LGBT rights advocate Barney Frank will narrate the piece, a story reminiscent of Peter and the Wolf with an experimental twist: third-stream jazz, or a blend of classical and jazz music. Additionally, NYC-based drummer and composer Gabriel Globus-Hoenich will add a brand-new piece to the COFE program, “Shattered Stones,” which will accompany two of Mozart’s early works, the Piano Concerto No. 21 and Symphony No. 29.

Mozart composed Symphony No. 29 at only 18 years old, while still living in Salzburg, Austria. According to Daniel Underhill Professor Emeritus of Music James Freeman, founder and Musical Director of COFE, Mozart may have paired the intimate feel of the piece with a striking finale in order to convince his father and even himself that he was talented enough to continue his career in Vienna.“It’s unlike any symphony that he had written up until this time,” Freeman said. “To see him suddenly produce a piece like the symphony that we’ll see at the end of the concert is sort of amazing. It just comes out of the blue.”

Both Piano Concerto No. 21, K. 414  and  Symphony No. 29 were written in A major, a key that imparts on them a “lyrical, singing quality,” according to Professor Andrew Hauze, who will be featured as soloist on the Concerto.  Mozart composed the Concerto just after he had arrived in Vienna at last, eight years after he wrote Symphony No. 29.

But what’s Congressman Barney Frank doing at a Mozart performance? After deciding to feature “Journey into Jazz,” Freeman asked himself, “Who would be an interesting narrator for this piece, a person who would perhaps—I hope—bring a different kind of audience to our concerts, a different kind of audience than has ever come before?”

Frank will also participate alongside Freeman and Hauze in a pre-show discussion at 7:30 P.M. before the 8 P.M. concert. Rehearsals for the show will be open to members of the Swarthmore community.

“I would say all of these pieces [in the COFE program] share a kind of vibrancy and energy, and to have Congressman Frank involved… for one thing, I never imagined that I would be the soloist on a program where he’s also the soloist,” Hauze said.

Freeman feels that this season’s COFE program will provide something to intrigue everyone, from connoisseurs of classical to jazz junkies to all Swarthmore students and staff.

“I just want people to experience recent classical new music, because I think people tend to be a little afraid of it as being too hard for them to understand, but’s it not,” Freeman said. “I hope they’ll hear the Mozart pieces and say, ‘Wow! I didn’t know Mozart was that interesting,’ because I think every note that guy wrote was interesting.”

                             Bayliss Wagner ’21

In 1975, an initial endowment from Elizabeth Pollard Fetter ‘25 began what is now known as the Fetter Chamber Music Program. Elizabeth Pollard Fetter’s husband later added to the endowment, as have successive generations of the family, including children Robert P. Fetter ‘53, Thomas W. Fetter ‘56, and Ellen Fetter Gille. The program has given opportunities for musical exposure and immersion to Swarthmore students, faculty, and community that otherwise would not have existed.

Robert P. Fetter and his wife, who currently live at Broadmead Retirement Community in Cockeysville, MD, recently extended an invitation to the Fetter Program for a Swarthmore chamber music group to perform at Broadmead. On Sunday, April 2nd, four student musicians took the opportunity to play for the Broadmead residents and Fetter family, nine of whom attended the one-hour recital. Jasmine Sun ’18 (violin), Ayaka Yorihiro ’20 (viola), Noah Rosenberg ’18 (cello), and Joshua Mundinger ’18 (piano) performed Passacaglia by Johan Halvorsen for violin and cello, Ballade No. 4, Op. 52 by Frédéric Chopin for solo piano, and Piano Quartet, Op. 60 by Johannes Brahms, which they would later encore at the April 23rd Fetter concert. 

The Fetter musicians played passionately and the Broadmead performance was well received by all in attendance. Dr. Michael Johns, coordinator of the Fetter Chamber Music Program, noted the unique gratitude which permeated the recital from both residents and performers. Says Johns, “We were honored by the invitation and opportunity to return the kindness of the family. Swarthmore College students and faculty, past and present, and the community at large have been enriched by the musical communication made possible through the generosity of the Fetter family.”

Maya Kikuchi ’20