While snow covered campus, some students were hard at work in the Conservatory practice rooms, honing their craft. Many participated in the Conservatory Intensive Practice Winter Term, a group project where Conservatory students spend the month practicing their instruments and working closely with their teachers and studios. Prior to last year, the Intensive Practice project was an individual project. This is the second year that the administration has expanded efforts to increase support and social events for the students.
Conservatory Arts Administration Fellow Zach Terrillion, OC ’24, was one of the leading organizers of the Intensive Practice project, alongside Conservatory Assistant Dean for Academic Support Larissa Fekete and Conservatory Associate Dean for Student Academic Affairs Leah Brockman.
“We had two main focuses for this project,” Terrillion wrote in an email to the Review. “One was giving students the opportunity to hone their repertoire in a focused environment. The second, which we worked primarily on, was providing them opportunities for community and social engagement. In the Conservatory, there is often a more isolated culture, with students often staying in their practice rooms outside of classes. Our goal was to disrupt that a bit and allow a relaxed environment for students to establish and develop connections with their peers.”
The program implemented a series of peer review sessions, where students shared progress by performing for fellow students in their division. Some other social offerings included yoga sessions from a visiting instructor, injury prevention workshops, and a field trip to see the Cleveland Orchestra perform Verdi’s Requiem.
For some, the Intensive Practice Winter Term did not differ much from previous years. Such is the case for Professor of Composition Stephen Hartke.
“What [my student] and I did was just a continuation of the sorts of lessons we had in fall semester,” Hartke wrote in an email to the Review. “Nothing different about the approach.”
Conservatory second-year Frazar Henry spent Winter Term furthering their composition studies. “I was asked to write a piece for the Oberlin Percussion Group, so that was my project,” they said.
While composing their piece, Henry’s mentorship reached across disciplines. Beyond their weekly lessons, Henry had more freedom to meet with other professors in order to familiarize themself with percussion and organ.
“I’d written for percussion in the context of other ensembles, but I’ve never written a piece primarily for percussion,” they said. “[Associate Professor of Percussion] Ross Karre held office hours where he’d demonstrate percussion stuff and let us experiment with it.”
Henry also received hour-long weekly lessons from Associate Professor of Composition Jesse Jones, twice the length of their usual lessons during the school year.
“Underclassmen Composition majors get 30-minute lessons,” Henry said. “I also had an impromptu lesson with Stephen Hartke because he has a lot of percussion knowledge and also a lot of organ knowledge.”
Henry finished the piece for Oberlin Percussion Group and started on their next major compositional project, a piece for student-run choir Now Chorale.
“The goal was to get better at percussion writing, which I definitely think I did,” Henry said. “I also learned that being in Oberlin in the winter is very good for getting a lot of work done quickly. Being in touch with Ross Karre for percussion advice and with Stephen Hartke really broadened my depth of knowledge.”
The Intensive Practice Winter Term concluded with an “open stage” performance, where project participants signed up to perform music that they had been working on before an audience of their peers.
“I feel the project was a success,” Terrillion wrote. “As a recent Oberlin graduate, I understand both the Conservatory and College can have a culture of students having many different commitments and potentially getting isolated from their peers and [from] fun, relaxed social opportunities. … We feel we have some solid momentum from this year’s programming, and we are excited to see how the Intensive Practice project continues to expand and evolve in the coming years.”
Following the performance, a social was held with hot cocoa and donuts.
