Grinnell College Home | Back to Graphics Version

Fine Arts Home | Art | Music | Theatre

Music Department Home | Faculty | Course Sites | Ensembles | Events | Facilities | Lessons | Alumni | Students

 

GRINNELL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Eric McIntyre, director

Orchestral ensembles at Grinnell College have a long history, dating back to the 1880s; archival records from 1881 mention an “Orchestral Department”. Grinnell's orchestra entered a new era in 1996 with the hiring of a new music director, and membership rose from approximately 45 players in the fall of 1996 to approximately 70 players in the fall of 1999.

Admission to the GSO is by audition. There is currently no limit to the admission of string players; all are guaranteed chairs in their respective sections, and they audition only for seating. Wind and brass auditions are somewhat more competitive; players audition for both admission and seating. Percussionists interested in joining the ensemble should express their interests to Mr. Dorr, instructor of percussion at the college; GSO percussionists are chosen by Mr. McIntyre in consultation with Mr. Dorr, and no formal orchestra auditions are required of them.

Full GSO rehearsals are Thursday evenings from 7:00 to 9:30. Sectional rehearsals are Mondays for the strings and Wednesdays for the winds, brass, and percussion, from 4:15 to 6:00 p.m.

Concerts generally average three in number over the course of an academic year. Two of the three the orchestra plays on its own, with the occasional addition of a faculty or guest soloist. The third is either a concerto concert, featuring the student winners of the GSO Solo/Concerto Competition, or a combined orchestral/choral concert, featuring a collaboration between the GSO and one or both of the college's choral groups in a performance of one of the larger works from that repertoire. The concerto and choral concerts regularly alternate on a biennial schedule.

The function of the GSO at Grinnell is largely that of a relatively stress-free, creative outlet for those who enjoyed a high level of instrumental music-making prior to their college careers and now wish to continue playing through college, regardless of whether their interests in music remain purely avocational or become seriously pre-professional. The choice of literature, culled from the standard orchestral repertoire, is therefore uniformly based upon the two overriding criteria of quality and playability, and most of the pieces chosen are consequently to be found among the core masterworks of the repertoire. Concert programs from the past three years have included Schubert's Symphonies No. 5 and No. 8; Beethoven's Symphonies No. 1 and No. 5; Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 ("New World"); Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5 ("Reformation"); Brahms's Academic Festival Overture and Haydn Variations; overtures to Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Wagner's Die Meistersinger; the concert suite from Bizet's incidental music to L'Arlésienne; and Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto with Grinnell faculty pianist Eugene Gaub. Choral concert programs have included Brahms's German Requiem and Handel's Messiah. Student instrumental solos in concerto concerts have included excerpted movements from Schubert's "Arpeggione" Sonata, arranged for viola and string orchestra; Mozart's Second Flute Concerto; Bartok's Rumanian Folk Dances, arranged for violin and string orchestra; and Bartok's Third Piano Concerto. In April of 1998, the GSO served as the pit orchestra for Debussy's Prélude a l'apres-midi d'un faune in the Grinnell College Dance Troupe reconstruction of the Diaghilev/Nijinsky ballet, and in October of 1999, the orchestra served as one of the performing ensembles when the Grinnell music department hosted the Mid-America Composers Festival for the Society of Composers, Inc. and the Iowa Composers Forum.

The GSO cordially welcomes interest from any and all college instrumentalists who enjoy the rehearsal and performance of mainstream orchestral rep. Further information is available from Mr. McIntyre at any time.