Sounds of Summer

Overseeing a youth symphony program means that keeping up with a blog is hard. Wanting to actually write decent entries makes it harder. But it’s been too long, and last Tuesday we had our summer concert—in a beautiful lakeside setting, no less—so it’s time for an update!

While GTCYS’ school-year orchestras, like most similar groups elsewhere, have an audition process, our summer orchestras are open admission. Just fill out a form indicating your musical experience, send in your payment or request financial assistance, and you’re in—simple. While this makes our summer program less intimidating for first-timers, it also means that participants are often kids with less playing experience. And yet, they did an outstanding job at the performance and the audience was very enthusiastic—both for classical repertoire by the likes of Bach and Dvorak, and for light-hearted bluegrass and mariachi numbers. What gives?

I think it goes back to passion. What’s arguably the greatest music education program in the world right now, Venezuela’s El Sistema, has a philosophy of “passion first, precision second.” That doesn’t mean that accurate playing isn’t important. Good rhythm, good intonation, everyone playing at the same time—those are all crucial elements of a successful performance. But they are best utilized when they serve the higher purpose of an exciting, communicative experience. Audiences want to be entertained, they want high energy, and they want to hear a group that holds together not for precision’s sake, but for the wondrous affect that true unity makes. And deep down inside, it’s also what performers want.

It was that kind of thinking that guided a lot of our work this summer. Accuracy, yes—but within the context of “coming out of our expressive shells.” The result was that a non-auditioned, very young crop of players was able to play “outside themselves” and the audience got it. Should we be thinking about this kind of thing more not just with educational, but also professional orchestras?