If getting the standard rock-quartet together to practice
isn’t easy, imagine preparing 82 students for an orchestral
performance.
The UCLA Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Jon Robertson, is
playing tonight at Schoenberg Auditorium at 8:00 p.m. For their
first performance of the year, the orchestra will be playing
Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 4,” as well as work
by professors of theory and composition Mark Carlson and Roger
Bourland. The performance will also feature a trumpet solo by
trumpet instructor Jens Lindemann and a piano solo by his wife,
Jennifer Snow, who is on the piano faculty.
“It gives us a nice versatile program for the audience to
experience,” said graduate student in cello performance
Alisha Bauer. “We have a variety of romantic, classical and
contemporary styles.”
Robertson, professor of orchestra and the director of orchestral
conducting, has been conductor of the Philharmonia since 1992 and
has watched it evolve for more than a decade.
“It’s an orchestra that has grown tremendously in
quality over the years, partially because the quality of our
students has increased, due also to the exceptionally fine faculty
we have grouped together over the last 12 years,” he
said.
The orchestra is primarily made of up graduate and undergraduate
music students, with a few slots open for non-music students in the
string section.
“It’s always a difficult process to build an
orchestra at a university, because you keep rotating
students,” said Robertson. “One year may be full of
seniors who have been with you since freshman year … and have
become very comfortable with the ideas and training you have given
them. Then the next year they graduate and you have a whole set of
freshmen coming in. You’re literally starting all over again
in ways to develop style.”
In addition to the high rate of turnover, there is another
pressing element which factors in to the hustle and bustle in the
orchestra room: time. The orchestra has only seven rehearsals prior
to a show, twice a week for three hours.
“With that limited schedule, it’s tough to get it
together,” Bauer said. “But it’s good, because it
gives us the opportunity to experience what the professional
orchestra does, which is having only a week to prepare a concert.
The L. A. Philharmonic plays a concert every weekend.”
Choosing a repertoire is also an arduous task delegated to the
conductor. It involves selecting the level of difficulty and the
mode and style of the music.
“It’s a question of looking at the seasons and
seeing how you want these students to grow as musicians,”
said Robertson. “You try to choose repertoire that will
enhance their growth and will challenge the students, but at the
same time to make sure you have enough time to get them to play it
well.”
Apart from biweekly rehearsals, stress of an upcoming show,
classes, work and studying, students must factor in sufficient time
to spend with their respective instruments.
“We need to take a couple of hours a day to
practice,” said graduate student in flute performance Kumi
Nakagawa. “Aside from a hectic schedule, we need to find a
spot in our life every day when we can hold our instruments and
just practice our own music.”
The UCLA Philharmonia is also scheduled to perform twice more
this quarter, on Nov. 18 and Dec. 9.
“It’s a very good orchestra, and I’m very
proud of it,” said Robertson. “They are playing
extraordinary pieces and they’re playing them quite well, so
I’m hoping that it will come together. It’s really
something the student body shouldn’t miss ““ it’s
exciting to hear them play this quarter.”