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\u2019s efforts to find off-campus performance opportunities for the group. This semester, Swarthmore College Lab Orchestra co-conductors Andrew Kim \u201918 and Shira Samuels-Shragg \u201920 have had the experience of conducting not only the Lab Orchestra, but also the Jasper String Quartet, a Philadelphia-based group of professional musicians.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving a lab orchestra like this is very rare for an undergraduate program,\u201d Kim says. \u201cThis is usually a model for graduate conducting programs. I don\u2019t know of any other conducting opportunities even at bigger universities that undergrad students can get that parallels this kind of experience\u2026 it\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0According 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. \u201cYou 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,\u201d Shragg says. \u201cThe 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\u2019re playing, and the idealized version you have in your head, and bring the orchestra to meet your vision for the piece. What\u2019s fun with Lab Orchestra is because…it\u2019s literally like a lab, we get to play around, whereas you could never walk into an L.A. [Philharmonic] rehearsal and say \u2018oh, I\u2019d like to try this passage three different ways.\u2019 In this setting you can do that, we have done that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim says that conducting for professional musicians has facilitated the improvement of both the student conductors and musicians. \u201cThere\u2019s 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,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve just found that everything that they say clicks with both the musicians and me a lot.\u201d Though the group gives feedback, Kim is still able to assert his own creative agency in the pieces that he conducts. \u201cIn my two semesters of working with them, I\u2019ve found the space that I need to still be that leader,\u201d he says. \u201cEven though they\u2019re much more accomplished musicians than I am, they\u2019re good about still giving me that space and allowing me to do what I need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Shragg, the Jasper String Quartet prepares her for her career path as a conductor. \u201cIt\u2019s different, but it\u2019s great practice because anything that we get to conduct in the real world, that\u2019s how it\u2019s going to be,\u201d Shragg says.<\/p>\n
This weekend, Shragg and Kim will debut their holiday repertoire\u2014featuring Sir Edward Elgar\u2019s Introduction and Allegro, Covelli\u2019s Christmas Concerto in G minor, Op. 5, No. 8, and \u201cWinter\u201d from Vivaldi\u2019s Four Seasons\u2014at 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\u2019s suggestion of the Elgar pieces because of the beauty of the music as well as the late Romantic-era style. \u201cI think it\u2019s a challenging piece for our group but they\u2019ve really kind of risen to the challenges of this piece,\u201d Kim says.<\/p>\n
Shragg, on the other hand, will conduct the Vivaldi and Corelli pieces. She was inspired to conduct Vivaldi\u2019s \u201cWinter\u201d after hearing it played during her Music Theory class. Hauze suggested the Corelli as her first piece to conduct \u201cbecause unlike the Elgar, it\u2019s not super dense. It\u2019s still beautiful and there\u2019s a lot to explore there but it\u2019s more manageable,\u201d Shragg says. The Christmas Concerto was composed to follow the story of Jesus\u2019s birth.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cpastorale,\u201d and the Vivaldi has its own corresponding poem that includes lines like \u201cshivering, 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.\u201d Both hope that Swarthmore students who attend their performance will be inspired by the wonder of nature, without having to feel the \u201cteeth-chattering,\u201d \u201cstinging\u201d winter weather.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The element of nature] is something that\u2019s close to Swarthmore students because we go to school in an arboretum,\u201d Kim said \u201cI hope that at a particularly busy time of the semester it can help people to take a break and even if they\u2019re not outside in cold nature, they can experience nature kind of vicariously in our pieces.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Bayliss Wagner ’21<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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