Malpractice in the Conservatory?

Is the Con preparing students for the twenty-first century?

You must smell it on the Conservatory walls: the Junior and Senior piano-violin-cello recital posters, emitting the odor of old books, musty archives, the inside of an antique anything. You can trace the stench back to the third floor of Bibbins Hall where museum curators station themselves, under the guise of "Professors."

For all the strange smells in Biology, no one in the science department could ignore current events of their field. Students and applicants would drop like flies. No fourth grader should teach a third grader and no educator should have a limited knowledge of their practice.

But it's a funny world.

Michael Mandarin, Director of Admissions, can boast an increase in applicants to our conservatory, an improvement in the "abilities" of the applicants. Faculty members can call themselves "Professors of Music," supposedly training performers and future Professors of Music. They are in fact "Specialists of Music written before 1920," training future Specialists.

But it's your own education.

And it does take tremendous discipline to be a performer; you must practice at least x hours a day to learn a Paganini Caprice, you must practice more than x hours a day to learn a Liszt Concerto. And you do, because you are a Good Student.

I saw A Good Student perform in upstate nowhere last fall. A Good Student played a free concert of romantic music to an audience of about two dozen. Good Student received his Undergraduate Degree in Piano Performance from A Highly-Esteemed Conservatory, under the instruction of A Well-Known Professor. Good Student teaches part time at the same Highly-Esteemed, and plays chamber music with other Well-Known G.S.s.

A Russian pianist, Arcadi Volodos, gave his Carnegie Hall debut in October. The epitome of Russian-school training, and possibly "the next Horowitz," his playing is the extraterrestrial capabilities of a truly Excellent Student. Bernard Holland, critic for the New York Times nailed the entire event: "his instrument was god and music the sacrifice offered up to it." I attended the concert, read the review and came to a complete understanding of the word: sacrilege.

The Specialists and their old books are a valuable resource. No less valuable than the composing that is happening two doors down from you, the culture of Hales, the basement of Bibbins, the programs on WOBC. If the term, "Art Music" is getting in your way, then rest assured: you will always be a Good Student.

Just as New York's uptown and downtown scenes have merged slightly over the past 20 years, it is time for a de-segregation at Oberlin. But don't wait for it to happen within the faculty.

Earlier in November, standing outside of a free student improv session someone remarked, "This is the part of the con that you don't see." I'm certain it depends on the hole you've crawled into.

The hole: Recitals of instrumentalists breathing life back into works of Dead White Guys, students creating their own financial downfall. The $120,000 sales receipt reads: "You are Cordially Invited to John Smith's CPR demonstration. Featuring works of Bach, Mozart and Chopin." No wonder only close friends and relatives will come.