The orchestra’s guest conductor for the performance was Jakub Hruša, music director and chief conductor of the Prague Philharmonia. The orchestra began the night with a performance of Leoš Janácek’s “Jealousy,” an orchestral rendition of the overture from the composer’s opera, “Jenufa.”
The second piece of the night, Opus 53 of Antonín Dvorák’s “Violin Concerto in A Minor,” saw concertmaster William Preucil, a former student of the music school, join the orchestra on stage.
To close out the performance, the orchestra performed “Pictures at an Exhibition,” a composition composed for piano by Modest Mussorgsky and transcribed for ?orchestra by Marice Ravel.
Dale Clevenger, a professor in the music school’s brass department, said he rarely had the chance to see the Cleveland Orchestra perform so he couldn’t pass up this ?opportunity.
Last night’s performance was the centerpiece of a three day residency at the Jacobs School of Music that began Monday night with informal chamber music performances at the Hyatt Place.
The residency’s events include various master classes, discussions about music entrepreneurship and arts administration, a visit to Fairview Elementary School, side-by-side performances with the IU concert and symphony orchestras, and a woodwind chamber recital where members of the Cleveland Orchestra along with students and faculty from the music school will be performing.
This is the third time the orchestra has held a residency at the Jacobs School of Music, having begun in 2011 and returning every other year.
The orchestra’s residency is an educational opportunity for students in the music school to interact with professional musicians, whether that interaction occurs through performing with the orchestra or participating in the master classes.
Deanna Said is a first-year graduate student studying viola in the music school’s Performer Diploma, Orchestral Studies program. She attended a master class with Robert Vernon, the Cleveland Orchestra’s principal violist. “One of the greatest violists in the country” were the words she used to describe him.
“It was really nice to hear him help other students and to also get feedback on what I was doing,” Said said.
Justin Holden, director of public relations for the Cleveland Orchestra, said they are committed very strongly to education. The orchestra hosts residencies in Miami Fla., as well as communities in the Cleveland area where they put on similar events.
“Education and community engagement is something that the orchestra has been involved in for a long time,” Justin Holden, director of public relations for the Cleveland Orchestra, said in regards to why the residency exists.
Not only do the students have a great educational opportunity, Holden said, but the orchestra gets an opportunity to connect with a new generation of musicians. Stephen Wyrczinski, a professor of viola and the chair of the string department at the Jacobs School of Music, said he also thinks the relationship between the school and orchestra is a ?reciprocal one.
“For one, there’s quite a few alums in the orchestra, so they have a real connection to this place,” he said. “And the fact that the Jacob’s School is among the top few of music schools, they get a very good match for a professional organization and an educational organization.”
The rareness of this opportunity is also important, Wyrczinski said, because he couldn’t think of another instance where a major orchestra held a residency at a major music school.
Getting the chance to just meet the orchestra members was a humanizing experience, Said said.
“They’re known around the world for excellence so that can be intimidating, but then when you can meet them and play with them you really get to ?appreciate the people who are making up this institution,” she said.
However, the networking that goes on during the residency isn’t very beneficial for students looking to join the Cleveland ?Orchestra, Wyrczinski said.
He said that despite the friendships made, the formalized audition process used by top tier orchestras such as this one make these connections less useful.
The really important experience that he said he thinks will help students hoping for careers with the orchestra is the opportunity to understand their art, discipline and tradition.
“That dual mission of being a performance in one of the world’s top tiers and also being world-class educators, that’s really unique,” Wyrczinski said. “And it makes their visit so valuable.”
