[CAUT] Piano juries on concert instruments

[joel a. jones]

Israel,
I would recommend following the faculty lead and join the chorus of no  
recitals during juries/exam week.
At UW-Madison we had such a policy in place.   There were NO recitals,  
concerts, during the last week
of classes.  Students were then able  to study, practice etc. instead  
of going to recitals/concerts.

This was a strictly enforced policy.  Everyone liked and worked with  
this schedule.  The pianos were
(sometimes) pulled for scheduled maintenance, regulation, voicing etc.  
if needed  :-)

I can't imagine having recitals during juries.   We all know that as  
long as it is allowed the procrastinators will schedule
their performance at the very, very last minute.

Joel


Joel Jones, RPT
Madison, WI


On Dec 21, 2009, at 9:21 PM, wimblees at aol.com wrote:

> Israel
>
> This is a situation where you give your concerns (in writing), to  
> your immediate supervisor, making sure he/she knows what's going on  
> with the instruments, and how you can't be held responsible for  
> their condition after all that use, and let the faculty duke it out.
>
> Wim
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Israel Stein <custos3 at comcast.net>
> To: CAUT at ptg.org
> Sent: Mon, Dec 21, 2009 11:37 am
> Subject: [CAUT] Piano juries on concert instruments
>
> Hello all,
>
> Well, the fecal matter has hit the air recirculation device here at  
> ole SFSU. It seems that a couple of the piano professors have  
> managed to prevail upon the Director (of the School of Music and  
> Dance) to hold piano juries in the concert hall (two days, all day).  
> Of course there was a Senior piano recital scheduled on each one of  
> those evenings, and we (the piano techs) pointed to the Director  
> that it probably would not be a good idea for the juries to be  
> played on the instrument both chose to perform on - our Hamburg  
> Steinway D - especially since there would not be time to even tune  
> the piano for the recitals (never mind to reverse the voicing havoc  
> of such abuse). Being a reasonable fellow, the Director instructed  
> the piano faculty to use the other two Steinway Ds for their juries.
>
> Today I found out that the two faculty members in question wrote a  
> nasty e-mail to the Dean (of the College of Creative Arts - of which  
> the SMD is a component) objecting to such scheduling of concerts  
> that prevents their students from being able to play their juries on  
> the best available piano. They still haven't gotten the message that  
> using it in this way will make it the worst available piano in no  
> time, since its general overuse has gotten those hammers to the edge  
> (I dread needling them at this point)  - and there's no budget for  
> replacement or major upgrade work, this being a California State  
> University campus and the Governator getting ready to short us a few  
> more zillion dollars next budget year...
>
> To her credit, the Dean's Admin. Asst. sent them a rather snippy  
> reply essentially telling them that they have no business holding  
> juries in the concert hall in the first place (she is a graduate of  
> this program from the days when we apparently had a lot smarter  
> policies in place) and they can't have it both ways - get the prime  
> concert piano for juries and have it available for everyone who  
> wants to perform on it. But I suspect that we haven't heard the end  
> of it.
>
> The point of this story is to ask, what kind of policies regarding  
> venues and instruments for piano juries prevail elsewhere in  
> CAUTdom? Is there any other place that allows this sort of use  
> (abuse?) of their prime stage instruments? Or any stage instruments?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Happy holidays (this campus closes tomorrow until January 5),
>
> Israel Stein



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