Scholarships

This is touchy for all. However, we should all understand that the merit-based scholarship really has almost nothing to do with how good you are at your thing. Rather, we should scratch any pre-conception of the meaning of "merit" that we had. Once we're clear about that, we can all talk about it.

I recently spoke to a string player who was concerned about being able to return next year because he was only receiving 75% of scholarship. This undergraduate junior is receiving more than me (a lowly DMA specimen!) No, I'm not even getting 60%. The difference is, instead of complaining, I went out and interviewed for some jobs and took two of them.

Fine, no one said a doctoral student should get more than an undergraduate anyways. Of course, the idea that a doctoral student has to pay for school is unheard of in any other field but again, it's all about the merit.

Let's talk about standards

My first DMA recital is in two weeks. It has been planned for about eight months now - before I knew I was transferring to NEC, I had already picked out the rep and begun to learn it - and my 'pre-recital' was last week.

Let me talk for a moment about how things go for the voice pre-recitals. You type up your program, you make ten copies and show up fifteen minutes early to sing in front of the voice faculty. You dress nice, you check the spellings and accents on all of your songs, and you choose your first piece. They can keep you for as long as fifteen minutes, picking various songs from your language groups. If everything is up to snuff, they pass you and you go on your way. But just before you leave, the chair says, "you can pick up your comments in the registrar's office later today."

I had a rather nasty case of bronchitis that really didn't make its departure until a few days ago, so I tried my best to sing as safely as possible without pushing my larynx into my eyeballs. I took my double-dose of cough medication, put on my nice sweater and pants and pointy-toed boots, did up the hair and the makeup, even put in my dreaded contact lenses. Where I come from, you wear dresses for auditions and recitals, but anything academic-oriented, you wear pants.

I would like to point out at this time that there is a voice department handbook that details the procedures for just about everything - promotionals, masters' auditions, program notes - everything except DMA information. There is no sheet stating what our repertoire is to cover, whether or not we're allowed to include opera arias, content, language, medium, instrumentalists, NOTHING. So I put together a recital that represented my languages, my styles, and showed off a lot of different things that I can do. And now for the focus of this post, the comments made by the faculty:

Two teachers said that I should 'show more attention to appropriate dress for a pre-recital.'

One teacher said that I should choose my repertoire more thoughtfully for a DMA recital.

And the rest of them thought my repertoire was wonderful and that I sang very well. These two teachers, whose comments were virtually illegible, chose to discuss standards of dress and repertoire.
First of all, what would indicate that this is a formal event when the faculty are wearing khakis, polo shirts and denim skirts?
Second of all, if you want women to wear dresses you should say so and then be prepared for my letter to the provost asking when this became the New England Conservatory of Fashion.
Third, why the hell does it matter if I was wearing pants? Can I sing? Am I ready to give this recital?
Fourth, if there are no standards published speaking to the content of my recital, it seems up to the intelligence and aptitude of the student and their teacher to determine content that is age, voice and artistically appropriate for the student.
Fifth, and finally, am I kicking that much ass that you have nothing to say about my singing and you are reduced to commenting on my attire? If so, then you need a thesaurus and I need a better scholarship.

If I had to pick one thing that drives me the most crazy about this institution it's the fact that very little is in print, leaving a great deal of leeway for every nabob to interpret exactly what they think these small phrases mean: appropriate repertoire, electives within their field of study, the list goes on. At what point in time will NEC hold its students and faculty to standards - published and defined - and realize that it is only through standards that you are able to measure the greatness of your students and the levels at which they achieve? When will NEC come out from behind its reputation and really take a position as a conservatory in the 21st century?

First Monday

Beethoven was cool of course but those Beaser "Mountain Songs" performed by Eliot Fisk and Paula Robison were absolutely ridiculous. I didn't know a guitar could do half those things and had no idea a guitar and flute could come together so beautifully and harmoniously. Yet another wonderful evening. Dazzled.

Darryl Harper's concert--clarinet and beyond

I thought it was totally cool. This is congruent with my vision for music--this kind of inter-disciplinary collaboration has to be good for NEC and the future of music. I think it's time the school be a bit more proactive about alternate venues for music making. We need to start some kind of communication lines up with the schools like MassArt, School of the MFA, or New England Institute of Art. There must be tons of work waiting to be done by collaborating artists. (I don't suppose we need more musicians but if we could reach out to Berklee, TBC, BU and Longy that would be the beginning of something really cool too.) Or, at least, we could all hang out at a hip joint and reenact that salon culture of the 19th c. where artists, writers and musicians chilled.