In the Warner Concert Hall lobby, big, framed posters hang majestically on the wall, commemorating Oberlin Orchestra performances at Carnegie Hall in the not-so-distant past. For many fellow Conservatory students, including myself,  these posters serve as inspiration, sowing the hope that we might get to embark on a similar orchestra trip sometime in our later years at Oberlin.

Since 2007, the Oberlin Orchestra has performed in a major U.S. city over Winter Term roughly every three years. The most common destination is Carnegie Hall in New York, with a 2009 performance in Los Angeles and a 2016 performance in Chicago. Perhaps less well known is that in 2005 and 2010, the Oberlin Orchestra toured China with nine and seven concerts respectively.

Considering this precedent, I was not only disappointed, but primarily confused when I got the email saying this year’s Winter Term orchestra project would be performing at Severance Music Center in Cleveland. We performed Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels’ Omar in Cleveland last fall, but that was simply part of our regular orchestra cycle. Now, there would be an entire Winter Term culminating in one performance in Cleveland.

With the project cancelled due to insufficient interest, it is clear other Conservatory students were similarly upset. For Conservatory fourth-year Jamie Hammarlund, who is originally from Cleveland, going on a trip her fourth year was something she was looking forward to.

“Imagine Manhattan School of Music or Juilliard or Mannes touring to Carnegie Hall for a Winter Term like this,” she said. “They would be touring the city they’re at. … It was a little disappointing to hear. It’s no surprise that there weren’t enough people that wanted to do this.”

As is always the case, at the end of last semester there were rumors floating around about what repertoire we would be playing this fall. These included Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, which were performed in the Carnegie Hall concert of Winter Term 2013. In Chicago 2016, the orchestra played Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, a similarly substantial and rather difficult piece that’s widely considered part of the standard repertoire. None of the pieces on what was supposed to be this Winter Term’s program, currently being rehearsed as part of the second orchestra cycle, are standard repertoire. 

“I don’t think that the repertoire is the main reason why people weren’t excited,” Conservatory fourth-year Soren Edman said. 

However, coming off of last semester’s successful performances of both Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 and Respighi’s Pines of Rome, this semester’s programming has been a recurring conversation topic in the Conservatory. For Edman, it was surprising that none of the rumors turned out to be true. 

“The minute I saw the rep list — Jamie can vouch — I sent it in the trumpet group chat, and I was like, ‘Did we get baited?’” Edman said. “I feel like everybody would be excited about Concerto for Orchestra or Petrushka.”

Director of Ensemble Operations Roy Fuccio was involved in the planning of this project.

“I’m disappointed that there wasn’t enough interest to proceed with this project,” Fuccio said. “A lot of factors go into the decision,” he said when asked what goes into choosing a venue for a Winter Term orchestra project.

He said the possibility of projects involving performances in cities farther away than New York, as well as international tours like those to China in 2005 and 2010–2011, shouldn’t be ruled out.

Many Conservatory students, myself included, are here with the primary goal of becoming professional orchestra musicians, simply because we love playing in orchestra. While most of us play in orchestra each semester, it’s still poignant that this year’s Winter Term orchestra project fell through, not because of external circumstances, but simply because not enough people wanted to participate.

Putting aside ever-present debates about the choice of orchestra repertoire, one thing I find quite special about Oberlin Conservatory is how approachable faculty and administration are and how much they genuinely care about us as students. Therefore, it saddens me that the planning of this project seems to have been out of touch with the student body and that the consequence is that there will be no orchestra Winter Term project at all this year. Now students will miss out on what many would consider a core Conservatory experience, and considering essentially everyone who was on the Carnegie Hall trips of 2022 and 2023 either has graduated or is graduating this year, the collective memory of this kind of experience is starting to fade.

I hope that this can be an opportunity for the administration to reflect — and for us students to really make our voices heard. I know many of us consistently find ourselves having lengthy conversations about orchestra, but these opinions won’t reach faculty and administration automatically, and would surely benefit from reiteration even if they are communicated in course evaluations or surveys. There’s still space for more framed posters in the Warner Concert Hall lobby.