By Grace Cardinal, Asst. News Editor

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Manhattan College’s numerous budget cuts have left the orchestra ensemble facing new struggles for the semester. Unable to rehire string instrument coaches or fill their sections with players, the ensemble is looking toward new ways to reinvent themselves to stay afloat on campus.

Students and staff involved with the orchestra and performing arts department alike are frustrated with the situation at hand. 

“I think it’s [the budget cuts] misguided from the part of the administration because things like orchestra are not just social, they’re also learning-based,” said Gwendolyn Toth, director of orchestra. “They help the brain, they help if you’ve had a tough day at classes. Orchestra is often the thing that kind of clears your head and revives you to go home and do some more homework.”

Miriam Duncan, senior, secretary of the ensemble board and performing arts scholar, explained to The Quadrangle how these new limitations have changed the ensemble’s day to day rehearsals.

“It’s been awful, we don’t have the budget to do anything really,” said Duncan. “We used to have instructors come in once a week at rehearsals to help us all improve a little bit. They’re professionals we hired and they can’t come anymore at all. They used to give private lessons, that was part of what you got for taking orchestra as a class. You got three private lessons, overall, your four years. They just cut that off completely because we can’t afford them anymore.”

The inability to hire string coaches is what has hit the orchestra the hardest in terms of budget cut restraints for the semester. Toth explained the impact the lack of coaches has had both on everyday rehearsals and on the ensemble members’ musical development. 

“It’s been terrible for us because we’ve always had a violin coach and a cello coach who work specifically with the string players,” Toth said. “I mean, in years past we even had a wind coach, but the violin coach puts the bowings in the players’ parts. This is a very specific thing that you need to be a real player to do. In rehearsal, she’ll give them fingerings. If there’s a tough passage, she’ll say, ‘you want to shift to this place’ for really specific technical stuff.”

Director of performing arts Andy Bauer explained that utilizing string coaches has been an integral part of classical music training for generations. 

“We have always had professional coaches in the orchestra that have played alongside of our students, and this reflects the classical music education that has been successfully mentoring musicians for centuries,” said Bauer. “Whereby you learn from a master and you play for them and you emulate them, and you’re tutored by them and instructed in the fine arts. And so having the coaches not available has created a great challenge for me and our orchestra director Gwen.”

Bauer explained that personally, he has volunteered with the orchestra to help alleviate some of the deficits caused by the lack of coaches in terms of musical skill. He says he is willing to help out in any way he can, as the performing arts department faces budget cuts as a whole, not just in a singular ensemble. 

Sophomore Kevin Cullen, a cello player and performing arts scholar, said that while the changes have been noticeable and will continue to be in the future, he believes that the ensemble will push through.

“It’s been noticeable,” said Cullen. “I’d say we’re still striving without it. We’re still going on. Whatever it is, we’ll manage. We are thinking about how exactly to get money for the orchestra so perhaps we can hire someone but I don’t know entirely.”

Cullen explained that while not having string coaches was a major issue, the effect of the budget cuts goes beyond having less independent instruction. 

“It’s not just the tutors as well,” Cullen said. “The tutors were the biggest thing but there were also other people who were hired for the concert specifically. We don’t have any bass players in our orchestra and we would hire a professional bass player to come in for that and I’m assuming that’s not going to happen with the budget cuts.”

Another major struggle the orchestra is facing this year is a lack of violists [viola players]. Where normally there is at least one coach to help fill in the viola section, there are now only empty seats. In addition to the orchestra’s already small numbers, this deficit has resulted in the ensemble being unable to perform symphonies or any classical repertoire. 

“In our case, we have the violins, there’s more than one in a part, and we do have several, and we have a number of cellos, but we have no viola players,” said Toth. “So what our violin coach would do is play viola in the rehearsal so that we would have all the parts. So we’re actually missing a giant chunk of the music now. I tried to select music that we could do without viola, but basically, that means we can’t do any symphonies.”

While luckily, the orchestra will still be able to put on their concerts and other performances as they do each year, audiences can expect them to look, and sound, a little bit different. 

“All of our events can happen, but they will be categorically different than they have been in the past,” said Bauer. “There will be [differences] when you have to change the repertoire that you do, to do maybe somewhat less advanced collegiate repertoire. That’s going to be an effect and our goal is to return to those [more advanced] practices in the future.”

As with many of the other clubs and organizations facing budget cuts this year, the orchestra plans to launch a fundraising campaign to help offset some of the deficits they face. 

“All the ensembles are now going to embark on fundraising campaigns to mitigate some of the loss that we have from the student government budget,” said Bauer. “This whole idea of fundraising is maybe something we should have been doing all along, because I have found that it creates a great deal of community collaboration, and it draws us closer together to achieve a goal: to get more money.”

Bauer wants to make it clear to the Manhattan College community that he does not blame the administration or the school for the performing arts’ lack of budget this year. 

“The pool of money that’s available to us has shrunk due to circumstances far beyond our control,” said Bauer. “So we can only look at this objectively and fairly. I have every confidence that the school is supporting us as much as they possibly can. I have no criticism or even suggestions for anything different for the administrators that have decided this, it’s not their fault. It’s just the pool of money that we all have to share has diminished, and there’s nothing anyone can do about that.”

Bauer noted that while he understands the short-term struggle the school faces, in the long term he is ready to help the administration increase enrollment by bringing in as many prospective students who are attracted to the performing arts as possible in order to keep both the school and performing arts department afloat and thriving. 

Toth concluded with a plea to the college to recognize that performing arts are a valuable part of the institution and of student’s experience on campus. 

“I could really beg the people in admissions to realize that people who play instruments on a high level are often the kind of people you want in your school,” Toth said. “Those are the kinds of people who are outstanding students. I mean, we’ve had a lot of people in the orchestra who were valedictorians or honor society members of each of their classes. I think if you look that up, you’d find that that was true…They’re often on a sports team and in the orchestra, and a straight A student. That’s who we are and if the admissions could really keep an ear out for those applications, and if there’s two equal people in one place, the oboe, please God, send them to us, you know?”