Rescheduling Brass Coachings to manage high-decibel volumes vs. room sizes
Dear Symphony and Concert Orchestra Brass Players and Families,
As you know, we invite brass professionals (primarily from the Oregon Symphony) once per term to work with each of our brass sections. We had our fall term brass coachings on Sunday, October 4th. On this day, we learned that even after adding acoustical panels to all of our smaller rooms, the high-decibel output of brass instruments is just too high for the size of those rooms.
With our students and coaches’ hearing and overall health in mind, we will move our winter and spring brass coachings to Thursday evenings from 7:00pm-8:30pm (one per term, on Thursday, January 14 and Thursday, May 6). Our brass sections will be able to use our larger spaces (Performance Hall, Contrabasement, Fireside Room and Jazz Room) for their coachings.
Also, we will split the time right down the middle. Students will work with coaches on their orchestra music for 45 minutes, and then they will regroup by instrument (Concert Orchestra and Symphony Orchestra students of the same instrument together) to work in a studio-class setting with each coach. This will allow for instrument-specific training (technique, ensemble skills, etc).
I’ve updated the PDFs linked on the sidebar of this page and the QR codes in the Performance Hall. Please update your calendars, and feel free to reach out with any questions.
Thanks,
Dr. G.