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

At his senior recital on Nov. 3 in Lang Concert Hall, music and honors mathematics major Josh Mundinger ’18 will perform selections of Bach’s 24 preludes and fugues (The Well-Tempered Clavier), Shostakovich’s Opus 87 from his 24 preludes, and Chopin’s B Minor Sonata. He has played the piano since he was six years old, yet his most enthusiastic comments concerned music theory and its mathematical elements.

“If I were to continue music academically, it would probably be in theory, especially because I would try to connect that to my interest in math as well,” he said. “Jon Kochavi, I have him now in a seminar in music theory and that’s been really enjoyable. It, for one [thing], touches on these mathematical connections, and we’ve been getting into weird music, and that’s something I really enjoy.”

Mundinger’s love for music theory animated his speech and actions as he described Chopin’s exploratory B Minor Sonata. “There’s these small little melodic fragments that are constantly trading off and appearing and disappearing and they slide together in really interesting ways,” he said, emphatically moving his hands in waves as he visualized the different melodic lines, harmonic shifts and textures all simultaneously present in the piece.

Mundinger first heard the sonata performed by professional pianist Ilya Poletaev at Swarthmore and the crescendo of the piece convinced him to study it. “The moment that really made me sit up in my seat was this chromatic scale setting in the bass,” he said, raising his arms and stretching them wider and wider to represent the range of the scale. “The bass line has this chromatic scale that goes up the piano and is crescendoing and the tension just builds and builds and builds.”

He values exploration of music so much that he dared to go against Beethoven lovers when he was younger. “I said I didn’t like Beethoven and I’m not really sure why,” he said. “Maybe it’s just because I didn’t want to accept what other people told me was good.” Despite his former disdain for Beethoven’s music, he has found that his study of the composer in high school and at Swarthmore have made Beethoven into a formative influence on him. “Music 13 and 14–in that class, I learned a lot about the music of Chopin and Beethoven and these Romantic composers that have been that cornerstone of my piano music made a huge impact on how I approach that repertoire,” he said.

For the 16 years he has been playing piano, Mundinger has preserved his passion for music and music theory by tackling new composers, new techniques and new forms of music, from Chopin’s études to the “weird music” he studies in his music theory seminar,  because they inspire him to push his skills further and get into the “nitty-gritty” of the music.

At 12, he learned the oboe. He performed new piano pieces he had learned for the prelude, postlude, and offering of the Lutheran church his family attended in his hometown of Boulder, CO, and even worked on learning the organ around age 16.

He has played chamber music since he was a freshman, at first in a piano trio with Noah Rosen ’18 and Jasmine Sun ’18, then in a quartet when violist Ayaka Yorihiro ’20 joined. And during his semester in Budapest junior year, he continued to play solo piano.

“I think for me a lot of [my interest] comes from renewing the type of music I’m listening to, renewing the styles that I’m playing, not just settling for the same composers,” he said. “Eventually you stop growing and…you get all you can from a particular genre, a particular composer, a particular set.”

After leaving Swarthmore, Mundinger will continue to play solo piano. Mundinger also plans to pursue a Ph.D in mathematics. He feels he will miss fellow music majors and their respect for musical exploration and individual taste.

“Everyone has a deep respect for each other’s music-making. Everyone has different aesthetics [and] different ideas about what music is good and yet we’re able to talk to each other and our friends, so that’s something I really enjoy about this particular community.”

Bayliss Wagner ’21