By JOANNA FARRER

If you had walked into an orchestra rehearsal in Room 309 at Juilliard one evening last January, you would have seen mostly what is expected at a normal symphony rehearsal. There were rows of musicians seated in a semicircle, cases pushed under chairs (with a few water bottles nearby), and pencils ready on the stands. But a few things would have seemed unusual. No conductor was standing in the front of the ensemble—and instead of sitting quietly in their seats, the musicians were exchanging (and sometimes shouting) their opinions between sections, demonstrating ideas, and referring to full scores of the piece being rehearsed. This was a typical night of Orpheus-style rehearsal for the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra last year: slightly noisy, a little hectic, a lot of fun, and an incredibly inspiring, enlightening musical experience.

Now in its second year, the Orpheus Institute at Juilliard provides a variety of unique learning opportunities for students through classes, open rehearsals, and coachings. The culmination of the program this year will be performances by the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall this spring.

Violinists Noah Geller (foreground) and Pala Garcia are among the students learning new rehearsal techniques in the Orpheus Institute. (Photo by Andrew Yee)

When I submitted my application to take part in the institute last year, I had heard many of Orpheus's recordings, but knew little about their organization. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1972 as a collaborative, musician-led ensemble for orchestral performance. Believing that leadership should come from within and be shared throughout the group, they work without a conductor and rotate concertmasters and principal players for each performance. The fact that they are a "conductorless orchestra" is usually the main talking point for articles about Orpheus, and I was eager to try their rehearsal techniques myself. However, our first assignment as members of the institute last year was not in orchestra, but in chamber music.

During the fall we were each assigned a piece to rehearse and perform—a Brahms sextet or Mendelssohn octet—and each group was coached by members of Orpheus. Our coaching sessions were focused less on exact phrasings and more on how we communicated with each other in rehearsals. (For example, we were encouraged to be more vocal in our opinions or more demonstrative in our suggestions.) In addition, workshops on concert programming, artist management, and marketing gave us further insight into the musician-run philosophy of Orpheus and how to implement it. The concepts of creativity, shared leadership, and open communication are essential, yet somewhat difficult to apply in a group of 30 or so musicians.

One member of our ensemble, violinist Yuri Namkung, described our first Juilliard Chamber Orchestra rehearsal last winter as "terrifying," adding, "I've never been put into a situation like that. It was eye-opening!" We were to perform Copland's Appalachian Spring during the January ChamberFest at Juilliard, and after playing it through for the first time, we realized that simple issues such as tempos and the placement of entrances were immensely challenging without a conductor's direction. We were each responsible for acquiring a knowledge of the whole piece, not just our own parts. From then on, our scores became our best friends.

Music analysts and critics condemn some orchestral musicians for seeming apathetic in their work, yet in the rehearsal style that Orpheus utilizes, there is no room for "sitting back in one's chair" either literally or figuratively. While the concertmaster of each piece is responsible for decisions about many basic entrance and tempo cues, every player must lead in various ways. Moving with the music, anticipating tempos, listening to the ensemble as a whole, and simply looking at one another throughout a piece are all basic axioms for any chamber music group, but not always ingrained habits for orchestral playing. Without a conductor's interpretation to follow, we spent hours talking through articulation ideas, bowings, phrasings, and tempo changes. Administrative tasks such as setting rehearsal schedules and deciding how much time to spend on each piece were all made by the ensemble. As we prepared the difficult program of Wagner's Siegfried Idyll and Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings for our Weill Recital Hall concert, rehearsal schedules became increasingly tight and deciding things democratically, especially in a group of very dedicated musicians, proved to be sometimes stressful work. The Orpheus members who came to our rehearsals as coaches helped tremendously. As violinist Sarah Crocker explained, "Our coach didn't 'direct' us, but helped us to find our own direction. It changed the way I play in other ensembles and taught me how to use my voice to influence others."

The Orpheus Institute at Juilliard encourages students to use their voices (and their ears) in pursuit of the truly collaborative, intimate chamber music experience that orchestral work can provide. In its administrative workshops, the institute conveys the necessity of being involved in more aspects of our art than simply what we perform onstage. Joel Krosnick, Juilliard faculty member and cellist of the Juilliard String Quartet, said that "there are a lot of reasons in today's world to turn cynical and lose hope for the future, but Orpheus restores my faith in what we can do as musical artists, and in what we musicians have to give the rest of the world." Perhaps that is what's becoming a "normal" sight in Room 309 these days.

Students interested in participating can obtain more information from the Orchestra Office (Room 472).

JoAnna Farrer is a master's student in violin.