Double-degree fifth-year Jonathan Bruzon is a Salvadoran-Cuban hornist and Mellon Mays Fellow. Like many other students of color, he has faced difficulties within the Conservatory and recalled his first year as particularly arduous.

“I got so many strange looks my [first] year because people were like, ‘You don’t know who Mahler is,’ or some other obscure composer,” Bruzon said. “My imposter phenomenon kicked in, and I’ve been struggling since then. The Conservatory desperately needs more POC musicians, faculty, and staff because we’re so underrepresented.” 

Many Conservatory students come from affluent families and have participated in costly music programs throughout their lives. This creates a culture of common understanding and shared in-group knowledge, which in turn leads those who could not afford pricey programs to hold a warped view of their belonging. Bruzon, along with other POC from low-income communities, are often left questioning their presence within the Conservatory through alienating comments like the one Bruzon received. This has been an enduring feeling among POC in higher education.

“It’s the same thing as when I was in school,” Associate Professor of Horn Jeff Scott said.  “When you go into higher learning, you don’t see many Black or Brown folk in the student and faculty bodies. Not only are there a limited number of POC students, but there are even fewer POC instructors.”

While Scott acknowledges this is applicable to almost every higher education institution, he also recognizes Oberlin does actively try to introduce representation and diversity in different ways, one example being the addition of culturally relevant courses. Associate Dean for Academic Support and Visiting Assistant Professor of Musicology Chris Jenkins, who also acts as liaison to the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, highlighted Oberlin’s efforts to introduce new diverse courses into a traditionally rigid curriculum that has been in place for over a century.

“It is obviously a struggle for many POC students to feel validated in the [Conservatory],” Jenkins wrote in an email to the Review. “The most effective help that I’ve seen yet has to do with our curricular changes — new courses, new professors, and substantive alterations to existing required courses.”

Efforts to make curricula more inclusive also must include bringing in faculty with the ability to teach the content. This cannot be accomplished without sparking resistance from those tied to traditionalist views.

“Particularly when it comes to teaching American music theory, it has to be more inclusive of Latin and African-American contributions, and they may not have studied that,” Scott said. “So they don’t know how to teach it, so they’re more afraid of it than anyone. That means bringing in more professors, cutting the pie a little thinner, because you have to have more professors. When you start talking about cutting the pie more, that means pay raises don’t happen often. It makes people uncomfortable.”

It’s impossible to foster diversity within higher education without making space for POC, which usually comes at the expense of those who have been present within the space since its inception, meaning they have to forgo certain privileges. This causes a shift that many will consider unnecessary or arbitrary; however, establishing POC within the Conservatory is vital to ensure future generations of musicians will be more inclusive of all music and people. While Oberlin has made efforts to move toward this goal, mistakes have been made.

“There was a Black History Month concert where they put a poster out,” Scott said. “It was supposed to be music of all African-American composers being played. The poster was only of the headshots of the six white musicians that were playing the music.”

Mistakes like these are extremely easy to make if there are no POC present to help guide diversity efforts. It is paramount that these efforts are pioneered by everyone, but putting voices of POC at the forefront fortifies their presence within an exclusive community. This includes reshaping what has been established for years to invite input from POC.

“Pedagogy is about telling history, which has to be told in its totality,” Scott said. “The problem with classical music is that it’s very narrow — it’s this one corner of Europe. We tell a story that’s so narrow in its scope, it has nothing to do with the contributions of Latin-American and African-American folks, and so when we call this place a conservatory of music, we’re not really talking about music, we’re talking about European-based music like Mozart or Beethoven.”

Conservatories in general focus on a narrow range of music, casting aside a variety of genres which originate from communities of color. The hyperfocus on this particular music bars students from becoming well-rounded musicians, which does them a disservice.

“Until we accept that this has to be included in the pedagogy, students will grow up lacking it, and so when they get here and you put a rhythm in front of them that doesn’t go like a march, they don’t know how to do it,” Scott said. 

Establishing an inclusive curriculum with current students could open doors for future musicians who would have otherwise not entertained the idea of attending a conservatory.

“I never thought that anyone else in the Conservatory was experiencing what I had experienced until a friend spoke up, and I realized there are so many others,” Bruzon said. “I feel like there is starting to be more support for POC in conservatories, but there is a long way to go.” 

This widespread experience has inspired him to begin researching imposter syndrome among students of color within the Conservatory. Bruzon hopes to give POC a sense of advocacy through his research.

“This research, more than anything, is a way to bring about awareness of, ‘Hey, this is a thing that’s happening,’” Bruzon said. “What are institutions doing to help support their POC students in this regard?’”

“Classmates once a week look at one show,” O’Leary said. “We generally focus on a part of a show and talk about what’s going on in it. What I tell people when they first join the class is to check it out for the first week or two and see if this is a level in which you feel comfortable operating. But in my heart of hearts, it’s a course that’s open to anybody who wants to engage with Sondheim’s music and scripts and scores at a deep level, to analyze what the shows are, how they work, what they have meant to people in the past, and what they mean to students now.” 

Sondheim was born in 1930 and went on to forge friendships with many Broadway lyricists and producers, including his mentor Oscar Hammerstein II, creator of Carousel and The Sound of Music. Sondheim created many famous musicals still being produced, such as Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Sunday in the Park with George. Sondheim won dozens of awards, including eight Tony awards, eight Grammy Awards, and an Academy Award. 

“American theater is kind of a niche field,” O’Leary said. “Not a ton of people had been working in it until recently. It seemed like a sideshow to international theater studies. But what I’ve uncovered in my research on [Sondheim] — I’m going through his archive, letters, scores, and scripts — I discovered that Sondheim is a figure who’s trying to bring international theater debates to the Broadway musical in the middle of the 20th century. Sondheim gives us a way to think about how Americans filter international theater trends in the middle of the 20th century. He starts by getting involved in this kind of theater called metatheatre, which was represented on Broadway by a small group of French and Italian plays. Metatheatre portrays the world as theatrical, such that our everyday lives … hide the nasty society underneath.”

One of the first questions I asked Professor O’Leary was whether or not students are required to have an understanding of music theory to participate in the class. While I keep many Sondheim scores with me, there is only so much I can understand without formal training. O’Leary responded that it is very beneficial for students to have some level of music theory training, but Conservatory and College students alike enroll in the class, making the most essential prerequisite a love for Sondheim and an understanding of his scores. Sondheim scores are often cited as having brilliant lyrics, with deeper meaning and messages embedded into the musical notation. Students work each week to examine that notation and explore how Sondheim pushed the boundaries of conventional musicals. 

“It’s supposed to be an introduction to graduate-level studies,” O’Leary said. “So throughout the course, I have the students do this kind of literary review. I’ll give them a topic within the genre of musical theater history or Sondheim studies, and I’ll give them a few different scholars talking about the same thing and ask the students to pick out the subtle differences between them. And sometimes, it’s hard to see exactly where they differ. And then their job is to investigate why we think of Sondheim when listening.”

Professor O’Leary and I bonded over our shared love of Company, his favorite Sondheim musical. Listening to the album as a kid sparked a fascination with Sondheim in both of us that has lasted to this day. Through this class, Professor O’Leary hopes to celebrate Sondheim and pay homage to his work. 

“I can take something that students have a lot or some kind of knowledge of, and look into the typical narratives about Sondheim,” O’Leary said. “It’s a way to see if we can expand those out and get exposure to all these different movements throughout the semester and then figure out how Sondheim’s working his music into those theatrical genres.”

At first, I blamed the Jazz department’s curriculum for this issue, telling myself that it hasn’t adequately prepared me for scenarios that require sight reading. I think this is only partly true. Not being able to sight read is my problem, of course, and I simply haven’t put much time into practicing that aspect of my musicianship. What I ultimately found in myself — and something I have noticed in other Jazz majors — is a sort of indifference toward more traditional or “classical” methods of practicing. On the flip side, I’ve also noticed a hesitation toward improvisation among classical majors. I believe this indifference stems from an anti-collaborative culture present in both the classical and Jazz divisions, which is due, in some capacity, to a lack of intentionality to merge the classical and Jazz divisions within the Conservatory’s overarching curriculum.  

A more formal overlap of musical genres in curricula has obvious benefits for technique, increasing your fluidity on the instrument and preventing musical ailments such as tendonitis or carpal tunnel syndrome. But perhaps the biggest benefit in practicing classical music as a jazz musician is that you begin seeing classical and jazz not as separate entities, but interdependent genres. Professor of Music Theory Jan Miyake, OC ’96, shares this view. 

“I think my big pause with a lot of the curriculum is that a lot of students end up forming this very clear separation between classical and jazz, and I think that’s not doing anybody any good,” Miyake said.

For all the time spent sitting in classrooms studying traditional Western classical music — a required four music theory classes, four aural skills classes, and one music history class — most Jazz majors have to go out of their way to actually play and practice classical music, let alone play it with others. That’s the case, at least, unless you have a private teacher who regularly assigns classical repertoire. Associate Professor of Jazz Bass Gerald Cannon explained why he assigns Bach etudes in his private lessons. 

“[Classical etudes] help with soloing, for one,” Cannon said. “When you play them through, the next thing you know you’re in the middle of a blues solo and you’re playing some Bach fragments.”

I’ve usually been able to connect the dots between these classes and my own musical pursuits. I see counterpoint, for instance, as a tool for my own compositions as well as an orchestrational tool when playing solo piano. Aural skills classes are obviously incredibly beneficial to a musician who learns most of their music by ear and is playing jazz, a genre that necessitates listening to other musicians. That being said, I still frequently find myself wondering why I need to take some of these advanced theory classes. Do I really need to know about interval class sets or large form analyses? Can I study classical music in a way that would be more helpful for the industry I want to go into? 

Miyake validated my concerns.

“There are times when I’m teaching when I realize that my biases towards pitch and how to organize pitches really prioritize classical music because that’s both my musical training and my theory training,” Miyake said. “Especially if you look at recent music, sticking it into categories isn’t working so well.”

A strong general music theory curriculum necessitates that the takeaways do not privilege one type of music over another. Until the introduction of the TIMARA program in the ’70s and the Jazz department in the ’80s, an update to the curriculum wasn’t necessary because there wasn’t as prevalent a need to cater to various musical disciplines. We are now in year three of an updated curriculum, implemented originally by a number of departmental chairs, including Miyake, at the time. But we still have a ways to go in terms of dismantling departmental barriers. 

Curricular changes happen slowly: introducing an alternative class for Jazz majors would require a proposal from the chair of the Jazz division that outlines the purposes, outcomes, and processes of the class. This proposal would go to the Educational Plans Committee, a board of departmental chairs who would then vote on the proposal. Although the Music Theory department dealt with roughly 600 registrations this semester alone, my hypothetical proposal here is one affecting a group of around 30 incoming Jazz majors, as a curricular change wouldn’t be grandfathered into current majors. It’s not at all out of the question. 

I would suggest that Jazz majors could take, say, only seven core music theory classes instead of eight, opening up a slot for a required class that gets Jazz majors playing with classical students — a class on Alexander Technique, for instance, or an ensemble that blends genres similar to the Performance & Improvisation Ensemble. When I was in PI Ensemble my second year, the opportunity to play with classical performance majors was invaluable. It opened my mind up to what it meant to play in an ensemble and threw all the limitations that I subconsciously set upon myself when in a jazz combo out the window.

That being said, PI Ensemble is an optional elective, and a lot of people won’t go out of their way to take risks unless they feel safe and comfortable with the people they’ll be playing with. We shouldn’t just be encouraging cross-disciplinary studies, we should be requiring it. This may mean substituting some of the many required Western theory classes with more tangible and practical classes that bring different majors together. It may mean organizing more social events that all types of musicians would be interested in, with the goal of fostering community between departments. Whatever the case, the Conservatory should be doing more to break down barriers between classical, jazz, and all other genres of music. 

Double-degree fifth-year Nick Beltramini spent ten weeks working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Honolulu. There, Beltramini collected and summarized ecological reports and recorded shark mortality rates to help NOAA better advocate for safer fishing practices around O‘ahu. 

“One of the reasons why I wanted to go out [to Hawaii] was to ingrain myself in a new culture,” Beltramini said. “There’s a different set of music and customs that go along with the island tradition.”

While in Hawaii, Beltramini, sometimes unintentionally, found ways to merge his interests in environmental research and music. Through talking to local ukulele vendors and taking lessons on native Hawaiian instruments, he observed similarities between his own and the locals’ approaches  toward playing and discussing music.

When students pick their instruments back up after any sort of hiatus, there’s usually a period of relearning. This can be a good opportunity to get rid of bad habits or start in an entirely new direction of practice. For Beltramini, living in Honolulu was a catalyst for a new learning curve.

“It’s so easy to get caught up in a cycle of, ‘I’m gonna play through these scales, and I’m gonna read these exercises down, and then I’m gonna work on a transcription,’ but it’s hard to make a change,” he said.

Beltramini reconnected with his instrument thanks to more than  just the period of separation. In Hawaiian culture, many are guided by aloha, a principle referring to a sense of peace and unity within the minds and hearts of each person, as well as with the land. Beltramini acknowledged that he can never have the lived experiences of a Native Hawaiian, but through his work in ecological restoration and giving back to the land, he felt a stronger sense of community. As he returns to Oberlin for his final semester, Beltramini hopes to see this emphasis on community and collaboration carry over toward his musical pursuits. 

“Seeing yourself in a role of the bigger picture is something that I can absolutely apply to music,” Beltramini said. “Even though we solo and have a spotlight we’re still serving a bigger purpose.”

Double-degree third-year Sarah Ying Ma spent the majority of the summer researching conservatory pedagogy at the Juilliard School through the Oberlin College Research Fellowship, as part of the Oberlin Summer Research Institute. Ma conducted interviews with Juilliard alumni and worked with a librarian at the Juilliard School Archives to collect data on administrative records, which included over 100 years of music course catalogs. 

The literature Ma studied was centered around the ways in which racism and colonialism are deeply embedded in classical music education, especially in conservatories. Ma found that the harmonic syntax taught in conservatories often not only conforms to dated Western ideologies, but is inherently anti-collaborative. 

“Engaging with that type of literature has really changed my approach to both listening and how I think about music,” Ma said. “I think it’s really important for classical musicians to be acutely aware and critical of the problems that contextualize the music they’re playing.” 

Ma wants to cultivate dialogue around who created the musical systems we are educated in. Through conversation, musicians come to conclusions about which classes are mandatory versus optional at a conservatory. This archival research helped Ma further understand and appreciate the importance of taking diverse classes that explore conservatory music outside of the Western perspective. 

“I’m going to be continuing that research throughout the school year, hopefully,” Ma said. “I want to keep learning more and eventually expand my studies of music curricula into other schools.”

From early June to late August, double-degree third-year Martin Kent worked as a counselor at Farm & Wilderness, an off-the-grid overnight camp in Vermont. Campers and counselors slept in three-walled cabins and went on backpacking trips. The camp was also located in a cell reception deadzone and operated under a strict “no devices around campers” rule. Even listening to recorded music was only possible on his days off. This was the longest Kent had gone without regularly practicing since high school. 

Despite this long break from regimented practice and collaboration, Kent was able to play techniques on the drums he previously hadn’t been able to do when he returned from camp. Over the past two years at Oberlin, he’d been attempting a complex technique implemented by jazz great Tony Williams, which entails playing fast notes with the hi-hat on all four beats, as opposed to beats two and four. 

“I gave [the technique] the room it needed to breathe. When I got back to my kit, I sat down to play and it was just there,” Kent said. “I had been struggling for a while to determine how to move forward both on my instrument and just personally. Working at F&W wasn’t an over calculated or over-planned thing. I just said, ‘okay, that sounds good on a human being level, I’ll do it.’ It turned out to be exactly what I needed, and beyond what I even thought I needed it to be.”  

When asking any professor about the most important part of playing jazz, they will almost certainly answer with “listening.” Kent’s camp is Quaker-based, and campers and staff have a 30-minute silent meeting every morning in the woods. Because of the camp’s emphasis on listening, Kent practiced that aspect of musicianship throughout the summer. 

“Working with kids, … there’s an organic nature to every interaction, and you really have to listen to them and hear them out,” Kent said. “It’s a real exercise in empathy and awareness.” 

These experiences highlight the interesting and diverse ways Conservatory students spend their summer. It sheds light on the fact that students can connect to their musicianship outside of just practicing and can even further their skill and experience through what many would consider “unconventional methods.” When looking toward the future and planning the summer ahead, musicians should ask themselves what they need to do rather than what others expect them to do. It is through that challenge that amazing experiences and lessons can happen.

But what is Jazz Forum — or, more importantly, what is it supposed to be — and why is it so popular to Conservatory and College students alike? In my three semesters at Oberlin, I’ve noticed Jazz Forum becoming increasingly synonymous with a jazz concert, which is another performance opportunity for small jazz ensembles. Concerts usually take place in the evenings on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. But by definition, a forum is far different from a concert.

“Jazz Forum provides invaluable opportunities to perform in front of an enthusiastic audience, discuss your work and receive feedback, [and] polish your stage presence,” Division of Jazz Studies Director and Professor of Jazz Trombone Jay Ashby said in the YouTube video “Oberlin Conservatory: About Jazz Forum.”

What I find currently lacking in Jazz Forum is an emphasis on dialogue. Forum should be a time where groups bring in their less polished material — pieces they’re struggling to refine. If you have any original compositions, bring them in to get input from others. Maybe you’re having trouble narrowing down the story or arc of your composition, or you’re not quite sure if the bridge should have a swing or even eighth note rhythm. Fortunately, your audience is full of talented, opinionated jazz musicians.

I think every audience member, Jazz major or not, has something they like and dislike about any given performance. However, I’ve noticed a hesitancy to voice those opinions when the time comes. Perhaps there’s a fear of coming off as too nitpicky, but that’s precisely why the space exists. If the band members can’t handle the finer critiques, maybe it’s time the musicians ask themselves: Am I going into this performance with the mindset of being receptive to feedback? The goal should be to approach Forum like a masterclass, except you’re playing for your friends and peers instead of a world-class musician — although, really, we’re all already professional musicians.

Back-and-forth conversation between the audience and performers is something I would really love to see more of during the feedback portion of Forum. Many of the audience’s comments aren’t clear-cut suggestions and would benefit from further elaboration. If you, the performer, truly want feedback, don’t just sit there and take it. Engage with it. Offer a justified rebuttal if you disagree with the critique. From a non-musician’s perspective, I imagine this dialogue is also quite interesting to witness, and I think there should generally be more of it.

Unfortunately, this time for discussion has been getting reduced by increasingly long set times. Forums tend to be more well-attended than concerts, despite the fact that students are usually busier at 12:15 p.m. on a Friday than at 7:30 p.m. on a Sunday. Audience engagement and energy can greatly affect the performers’ stage presence, and when the crowd is thin, it can be difficult to put on a good show. Consequently, I think that jazz ensembles squeeze as much music as possible into their forum sets to compensate for the lower turnout at concerts. 40-minute, four-song sets have become the new standard, despite there only being time for one 30-minute set per ensemble. What’s left is only a couple of minutes for feedback, which feels more like an obligation than an opportunity.

Additionally, the Cat in the Cream is a deceptively large venue; it claims to have capacity for 325 people. If 40 people show up to a jazz concert, which isn’t necessarily a small number, it can still feel quite empty — especially since we have a tendency to fill up the back of the room first. I myself have fallen into the trap of focusing my practice time on songs I’ll be playing at Forum because I know more people will hear it. For the concert, I’ll just wing it. When everyone in the group has this mentality, the concert may be more lackluster, furthering the cycle of low audience attendance.

This brings me to a potential solution for the concerts’ waning popularity: utilize the other amazing performance spaces in the Conservatory. If we want more people to come to jazz concerts, perhaps they could be held in a space other than the Cat in the Cream, which is so heavily associated with Jazz Forum. Having these concerts in the David H. Stull Recital Hall or the Birenbaum Innovation and Performance Space, for instance, could help others realize that they are true showcases of talent not to be missed. Some ensembles have photoshoots and make posters for their concerts to be pinned up around campus or posted on an Instagram story. I think this is a fantastic idea, and I would encourage other groups to do the same. Any sort of self-promotion will emphasize the idea that concerts and Jazz Forum serve different and uniquely important purposes.

I don’t believe that Forum is living up to what it could be. I think shortening the Forum set times to allow for more discussion and putting more energy and intention behind concerts could help form a clearer distinction between Forums and concerts, further uplifting them both.

One has to ask: With an abundance of talent across the Conservatory, why do these extra gigs consistently feature students from the Jazz department? Well, for one, Jazz students share a collective knowledge of tunes, unlike any other musicians in the Conservatory. In the spring of their first and second years at Oberlin, Jazz students have a final exam of sorts called a jury. These juries are the culmination of learning the same 50 jazz standards during their first year and another 43 their second year. The students must have internalized these songs to the point where, when a faculty member calls any one of these standards, students can play the melody and improvise over the chord changes — with or without a supporting band.

Kent has found this shared musical catalog to be essential for playing gigs.

“We all know the repertoire,” Kent said. “Really, at any given moment, we can not only play a tune but alter it and make it our own.”

This shared repertoire, combined with a training in improvisation, makes jazz musicians uniquely equipped to pick up gigs, particularly those with little to no rehearsal time needed. In my experience as a Jazz Studies major, a gig rehearsal usually goes as follows: I receive an email from the Conservatory gig-referral service stating that a local store, restaurant, or College event is seeking live music. After sifting through my contacts for a bassist — they are few and hard to come by this semester — I assemble my group and a “when2meet” is sent out. Sometimes, finding a time when everyone is free to rehearse takes longer than the rehearsal itself. We eventually run through mutually agreed-upon tunes in a Kohl Building ensemble room and we’re ready to perform in an hour or less.

Junior and senior recitals, on the other hand, can require long and frequent rehearsals; students may begin rehearsing well over a month prior to a recital. In this instance, the focus shifts from getting paid or having fun to further developing one’s artistry and musical voice. For first-year double-degree Jazz Drums, Jazz Voice, and Creative Writing major Ruby Laks, a recital is a hard gig to turn down.

“It’s an honor, in a sense, to be asked by a junior or senior to play on their recital,” Laks said. “If they think I can help to achieve their artistic vision, I don’t want to say no.”

Laks has now committed herself to playing on seven of her friends’ recitals, each with their own slew of original compositions and jazz standards, many of which have complex and lengthy arrangements. With one individual song alone in a recital needing an hour-long, weekly rehearsal, Laks easily spends three or four hours a day, every day of the week, rehearsing — not including her registered, for-credit ensemble meetings. That doesn’t even account for the time Laks must spend practicing all these tunes independently. As one can imagine, this rehearsal-heavy lifestyle comes at a cost.

“You’re cutting corners somewhere,” Laks said. “You’re making time by staying up later, which then affects your physical and mental health. … Or you’re spending less time on your schoolwork.”

Another aspect of this rehearsal culture is compensation, or lack thereof, for all the hours of preparation. You’ll never get paid to play on a recital, despite it being the most time-consuming and musically-demanding gig. Ironically, the more casual and impromptu gigs usually result in a paycheck. It seems, though, payment may be seen as more of an added bonus than a requirement for those in the Jazz department.

“As a student, payment isn’t the main incentive for me to take a gig — I’m here to connect with other musicians as much as possible,” third-year College Musical Studies major and jazz bassist Nathaniel Coben said. “Of course, then you’re setting lower standards for yourself as a professional, which we’re all trying to be.”

Overall, Jazz students work tirelessly to create music and connect with the musicians around them. This is a gift for the Oberlin community, and regardless of how much they’re getting paid or the incomprehensible amount of hours spent in the ensemble rooms, you’ll never witness a jazz gig with expressionless faces or low energy, which really speaks to the essence of jazz music as a whole.

In the fall of 2021, the month before classes began, I was convinced I would drop my Conservatory degree. I worried I would be less talented than my peers in the Jazz department and also viewed my major in Chemistry as the clearer path, something I knew I was good at. Luckily, after the first month of classes, I made a group of close-knit friends in the Jazz department who changed my mind about my Conservatory degree.

After deciding to stay in the Conservatory, I assumed I could leave Oberlin in four years with two degrees, if only I just managed my time well enough. I would have multiple daily classes and labs from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., followed by ensemble coachings, rehearsals, a part-time job, homework, and a ton of personal issues that would keep me up past midnight every night. I reluctantly pushed through labs and organic chemistry courses so I could make music, something I truly enjoyed. Last spring, I established a prominent Conservatory student organization which required a lot of time to complete paperwork and other tasks. I was addicted to doing it all, being the “busy one,” and averaging four to five hours of sleep a night. 

I spent the summer working over 12-hour shifts and stumbled into the fall semester of my second year with an intense schedule that had me immediately drowning in work. For the longest time, I believed there was light at the end of the tunnel and that this double-degree program would get easier. With each conversation I had with my friends and family outside of Oberlin, though, I received the same, recurring question: “Why are you majoring in chemistry?” 

My answer to that question kept changing. I told people, “I enjoy the content I learn, and I want to be a gynecologist someday who does music on the side.” After a while I said, “I find the content interesting.” Once the content became tremendously more difficult, my answer became, “I just need a backup plan.” I would find only an hour or two a day to practice my music — which I came to Oberlin to improve — and even then, I was too mentally or physically exhausted to be productive during that time. Truthfully, the Oberlin Jazz department is extremely time-demanding, with a myriad of late-night rehearsals, several ensembles, and other musical expectations. Some weeks, I had three to five performances. There was no way for me to complete all my work, get enough sleep, and be satisfied with how much time I spent in the Kohl Building practice rooms. 

One afternoon, I had a lesson after a long weekend of performances and preparation for exams. I had barely practiced, and it showed. My private teacher saw how exhausted I was and expressed her disappointment in my performance that week. I saw, for the first time, that I wasn’t truly improving. Even though I worked so hard, I was proud of none of it, and this lack of improvement was taking a toll on my mental health. Less than thirty minutes after that lesson, I hopped on a Zoom call with my College advisor to drop my Chemistry major. 

The rest of the semester, I was incredibly proud of my decision. However, once I started classes last week for the spring semester, I became doubtful; more time in my schedule just meant I had more time to be a bad musician! Once I sat with the discomfort of mental stillness for a little, I started to have so many more ideas about my music. Now, after two weeks, it feels like I have the same amount of obligations I did before with all of my labs and classes, but the difference is that I created half of them for myself. I finally have time to make music I’m proud of — to dedicate myself fully to rehearsals, ensembles, and my student organization. 

The double-degree program at Oberlin is undeniably a unique opportunity for students who have interdisciplinary interests, but I sometimes feel it fosters the notion that musicians need a talent outside of their music to make it professionally. Many students lose a lot of time practicing their instrument because they are convinced the double-degree program is something that will help them, only to come to the conclusion that it is too much. The only way we can improve as musicians is to give ourselves enough space and mental capacity to improve, and that boundary is different for everyone. I am thankful that I realized how important my music is to me, and I can only hope that other students at Oberlin in a similar position will read this and know that it’s okay to prioritize their music. 

After months of anticipation, Oberlin students took to the Ronald O. Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall and performed live for an invitation-only audience of United Nations General Assembly delegates last Friday. The performance honored the work of President of the General Assembly Csaba Kőrösi, who has served in this capacity since September. 

Five-and-a-half hours before doors closed, the orchestra sat on the same stage before a phantom audience, tuning their instruments and enjoying the moment with their peers. Between strums of their strings and breaths through their horns, the orchestra stopped to take in the magnificent concert room they were filling with their music: a room soon to be packed with approximately 1,800 audience members. 

Backstage, staff from Oberlin and the Global Foundation for the Performing Arts prepared the venue with an electricity powered by pride for the musicians on stage. As if ready to march into battle, Director of Oberlin Orchestras Raphael Jiménez stepped out of his dressing room with a brilliant smile and resolute focus and began his walk to the final orchestral rehearsal before the concert later that evening. Walking beside Jiménez was Dean of the Conservatory William Quillen, who paused to talk about the ghosts of Carnegie — alleging a haunting by the friendly spirits of the greatest musical minds of history. Moments later, GFPA President Benjamin Woodroffe sat with the Review in Jiménez’s dressing room to discuss the resurrection of the U.N. Gala Concert tradition. 

“In the early years of the United Nations, there used to be an annual concert,” President Woodroffe said. “When [GFPA] learned of that, we suggested this needs to be resurrected. We need an annual concert now because the world needs to be brought back together. … We looked at some of the past programs of these concerts, and one of them included the Rachmaninoff that we’re hearing tonight, and one of them, of course, included Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. We thought, let’s put it back on the map. Let’s honor what has been, but let’s bring in today’s future musicians to perform it.”

As President Woodroffe spoke, a screen in the dressing room displayed a live stream of the performers rehearsing on stage. Looking at the Obies on the screen, President Woodroffe considered the partnership between Oberlin, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, and GFPA and posed questions musicians need to consider when thinking about their futures.

“We have to create musicians — I’m looking at them on the stage behind you — and they have to be entrepreneurs as well,” President Woodroffe said. “They have to have a vision, and they have to think about what that vision is and how they will take it to the world. So performing different types of music, performing in different ways, performing in different spaces, in different venues, how they record their music, how they distribute their music. These are all questions that we would like to bring to the table with Oberlin as we go forward. But what really matters to me is that musicians play what they want to play, and they play the music that speaks to themselves now. If they play it, they’re dedicated to it.”

With four hours left before the performance, President Woodroffe prepared President Carmen Twillie Ambar, Chief of Staff David Hertz, Assistant to the President Jennifer Bradfield, and Administrative Manager Emily Speerbrecher for the proceedings of the evening. To the backdrop of fantastic orchestral swells, this small contingent toured the still-empty foyer of Carnegie Hall. Walking through the musical landmark, the group carried a refrain on the immense pride and honor they felt for Oberlin on the momentous occasion of performing for the U.N.

“This evening holds a significance that is palpable and powerful,” President Ambar said in her speech that evening. “What you will experience tonight cannot be fully measured in headlines or social media shares. We are not here to raise money or to dedicate a project. Rather, we gather — the United Nations General Assembly and Oberlin College and Conservatory — to commemorate our complementary missions to change the world for good through the power of music, beauty, and education.” 

Catharsis Through Concert

Moments before the music began, the audience felt somewhat uncertain, not knowing what to expect nor the journey they were in for. The room settled, but  somewhat scattered expectations remained, manifesting in light applause as the orchestra arranged itself onstage.

With instruments tuned and voices warmed-up, Jiménez waved the first notes of the night into life. “Fanfare on Amazing Grace” by Adolphus Hailstork inaugurated the evening, with a surprise appearance by Hailstork himself at the end of the piece. “If you’re looking for the composer, he’s out here — Hi folks!” Hailstork announced from the back of the hall to roaring applause. While the room cheered for Oberlin and Hailstork, presidents of the GFPA, the U.N. General Assembly, and Oberlin arrived on stage for their opening remarks. 

“Article 1 of our charter says that the United Nations is to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations,” President Kőrösi said in his address. “Much of what we are doing here — and most everything that we want to achieve — is about reaching harmony through listening to each other, acting together, and understanding the deeper context together. Just like a work of art, harmony among our nations means peace. Harmony all over the globe means solidarity. Harmony in our hearts means respect.” 

As stage producers arranged the set for Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, the excitement of holding a concert with a full orchestra was palpable. In December 2021, the U.N. Gala Concert exclusively featured a solo by pianist Byron Wei-Xin Zhou, who returned to noticeable excitement from the U.N. to perform the Rachmaninoff piece alongside the Oberlin orchestra.

Ahmed Abdelaziz, legal advisor to the Permanent Mission of Egypt, spoke to the Review during the intermission and was struck by the quality of the performance and selection of music for the evening. Oberlin Trustee Chuck Birenbaum, OC ’79, also spoke about the power of the concert and its relevance to the larger partnership with the U.N.

“It’s a fantastic partnership with the United Nations, and this concert shows how successful this partnership will be for Oberlin and for what Oberlin can do in the world,” Birenbaum said. “I’m really looking forward to what comes next. The emotion and the power that comes out of this concert is symbolizing, it’s iconic, of what kind of people we are at Oberlin or the United Nations.”

Even as they took the audience’s breath away, the musicians remained poised and graceful despite their long journey to the stage. Conservatory fourth-year and violinist Madeleine Zarry reflected on the unique challenges of performing in Carnegie Hall for the first time amid graduate school deadlines and impending final exams. 

“Performing in Carnegie and rehearsing in Carnegie was extremely different than Finney Chapel,” Zarry said. “I think it took a lot of us by surprise, how different it was. Acoustically, it’s such an incredible hall, but that also comes with challenges that we have to overcome. Finney Chapel hides a lot of what happens on the stage, whereas everything that happens on the stage is projected in Carnegie. … I think we did the absolute best that we could have, and I do think that we did very well. … I think it was completely overwhelming for a lot of us, especially as a [fourth-year]. We left on Dec. 1, and all grad school applications are due on Dec. 1. It’s also right before finals, so a lot of us were very overwhelmed doing our applications on the bus ride there, exhausted. But all of that went out the window once we got on stage.” 

The evening closed with the choral ensemble joining the orchestra for a fierce and uplifting rendition of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Throughout the nearly two hours of music performed, Jiménez kept up his energy and zeal. For the audience, it felt as though the power of the room was emanating directly from him as he led the ensemble with both grace and authority. As the music unfolded, fantastic sound rushed forth from the stage, wrapping around the walls and flooding into the audience from all sides. Carnegie’s acoustics together with Jiménez’s conducting wove together an immersive symphony of sounds that embraced the room. With minutes to go until the finale, smiles of excitement shot across the faces of the performers: They knew the audience was in for the best part of the night. 

“I have to say, too, that there was something about [Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9] which really speaks to a vision of universal collaboration, of universal harmony, of camaraderie and kinship,” Quillen said. “Those lines from the end, ‘this kiss is for the whole world, this kiss is for the whole world.’ Singing that piece and performing that piece at that moment for that audience was particularly meaningful and particularly poignant.”

The evening put the immense talent of Oberlin students in the spotlight for a visibly awestruck U.N. audience. A standing ovation celebrated the orchestra and choir for more than two minutes at the end of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, bookending a historic night for Oberlin and the United Nations.

Oberlin students will return to Carnegie Hall on Jan. 20, 2023 to perform for a general admission audience.

For those unfamiliar with this campus dining establishment, Skybar is the beautiful glass heaven of the Conservatory — DeCafé in the sky, if you will. Suspended magically between the Kohl Building and Conservatory Central Unit, it provides starving students with a quick, hot meal. Skybar has something for every student. Not only does it contain a DeCafé fridge replica stacked with sushi and salads, Skybar also carries breakfast sandwiches from the Rathskeller and hot Stevenson Dining Hall lunches.

I would like to stop and take a moment to highlight the supremacy of the Skybar Rathskeller sandwiches compared to the actual Rathskeller sandwiches. I have never waited in line for a breakfast sandwich at Skybar, unlike at the Rathskeller. And more importantly, the Skybar sandwiches are always hot, with the cheese adequately melted. Sure, the variety is a little limited, but I would take melted cheese over the cold slab that I would receive from the Rathskeller any day. Skybar also regularly has its breakfast sandwiches available until well after 10 a.m., which is when the Rathskeller closes. On a lucky day, I can still get a Beyond Sausage, egg, and cheese on a bagel until 10:45 a.m. It’s truly a blessing.

Now that we got that out of the way, there are a plethora of other, more obvious reasons to be thankful for Skybar. First, have we really thought about how convenient it is to have a café in the Conservatory? Conservatory students are too often caught skipping lunch to practice instead, but with Skybar, it’s so easy to grab a quick meal and not have to worry about missing that practice session or being hungry during class. I can get my hot tea and breakfast sandwich and be in a Bibbins Hall classroom within minutes, energized for my day.

But sometimes, when I’m not in a rush to get to class, I get to enjoy my meal and do some work. I personally enjoy doing my homework in a more bustling environment, and Skybar is the perfect Azariah’s Café alternative for that more coffee-shop vibe. Of course, Azzie’s definitely has superior drinks, but as a tea drinker, I appreciate the tea selection offered at Skybar — Azzie’s just can’t compete in that department. There are also plenty of tables and individual seating, not to mention the complimentary view of the Conservatory buildings.

The windows are a benefit of their own — talk about natural lighting! And as I mentioned earlier, Skybar overlooks the Kohl Building, home of the Jazz department. On a warm day, you may be able to see Jazz students gathered in a circle playing Hacky Sack below or having a full-on jam session. It’s a people-watcher’s utopia.

For me, the best part of Skybar is the people. Whenever I venture up those three flights of stairs or take the elevator — let’s be honest, I rarely take the stairs — I am always greeted by a smiling face and a classmate or friend who I can sit and chat with. Skybar is an unrealized backbone of the Conservatory community. Sure, the sushi rice may not always be fresh, but having a space where we can relax, enjoy a meal, talk with friends, and get some work done is so important. And with that I say, thank you, Skybar.

Gallery • 3 Photos

Erin Koo

John Cavanaugh, director of the Artist Diploma in Piano Technology program, tunes one of the many pianos available to Conservatory students.

In the early hours of the morning, before the music-making of the day begins, piano technicians are hard at work tuning pianos.

There are 250 pianos in the Conservatory, many of which get tuned daily. Tuning a piano takes even the most skilled technician about an hour, and there are only a handful of people in the Conservatory equipped to do the job. 

The impact of this daily task is enormous. Every student in the Conservatory interacts with a piano at some point before graduating. First-year students take an introductory piano class upon arriving at Oberlin, pianos are almost always used for demonstrations in theory and aural skills classes, and every performance major collaborates with pianists for recitals or even for national and international competitions. In short, having properly tuned pianos is vital not only for student learning but for the reputation of the Conservatory as a whole. 

This is all taken care of by the Piano Technology department. However, tuning pianos is not the only work they do; in fact, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

Tucked away in the basement of Bibbins Hall, the department is home to the Artist Diploma in Piano Technology program, an immersive two-year mentorship that accepts a small number of students and turns them into expert piano technicians. Inside the workshop, four Steinways take center stage. Scattered around them are wood shavings, spare piano parts, and coiled-up strings. A diagram illustrating the “periodic table of wood” hangs proudly on a door. In a corner lies a table full of drying coffee mugs. It’s clear that this is not only the studio of a craftsman but an artist.  

John Cavanaugh, director and creator of the Artist Diploma program, devised the program because he saw a need for piano technicians who were not only technically skilled but artistically savvy as well. By teaching students in a music conservatory setting, the program aims to bridge the gap between pianists and technicians through collaboration. 

“We’re the only school that does this,” Cavanaugh said. 

Upon graduating from the program, 90 percent of students are offered jobs in top positions at major music schools and acclaimed piano factories. Wenqin Yi OC’ 20, who was recently offered the top piano technician position at Michigan State University, is one of those alumni. 

“A lot of young kids, they graduate, and they have difficulty getting one job,” Yi said. “But with piano technology, you spend two years and then you have a stable, strong skill that you can make a living with.” 

The students in the program come from a wide range of backgrounds. Some came to Oberlin knowing a bit about piano maintenance, and some were pianists themselves. Among the members of the class are a retired high school music teacher, a student who is 70 years old, and a former restaurant owner. 

“The students I went to school with were people who were tired of the rat race,” Cavanaugh said. “It’s a very eclectic group of people who are interested in this.”

The work of a master piano technician is interdisciplinary. A skill that combines mechanics, woodworking, math, physics, and the manipulation of tone and voicing, working on pianos is often equated to working on an elaborate crossword puzzle.

Unlike crossword puzzles, however, there is the additional challenge of working with a piano’s organic materials, as the materials in pianos expand and contract with weather changes. This leaves piano technicians with the difficult task of restoring pianos while constantly keeping the future in mind. Every move a technician makes could make or break the piano and its ability to endure temperature and humidity changes. 

Andrew Bertoni, OC’ 88,  works on the maintenance of the pianos in the Conservatory classrooms and Robertson Hall practice rooms, as well as the piano in the Cat in the Cream, which is his personal favorite. 

“There are certain times a year where I go around because I know that there are a lot of strings breaking because of the change in humidity,” Bertoni said. “So the bridge on the piano is moving, and the strings are getting pulled, and they tend to break.” 

Despite the constant maintenance, the Piano Technology department remains a foreign part of the Conservatory to many, including pianists. 

“There are a couple of people on the piano faculty that come down here and have known me for 21 years, and they look around here like, ‘whoa’,” Cavanaugh said. “We always say, ‘Are you lost?’ They’re just upstairs, but they live in a totally different world — they have a totally different mindset. They call us the unseen artist. We’re the artists who work on the pianos, but no one knows. We’re like the elves who show up.”