Professor Hilary Tann works in frozen music. Tann is a composer and former Music Department chair who has long advocated for a new music building at Union College. A $4 million renovation of the North Colonnade largely completed in January delivered to Tann and her colleagues a facility to match their highest hopes—the Taylor Music Center.
“They say that architecture is frozen music, right? And so here I am, I’m living in frozen music,” Tann said while sitting in her new office. “I have argued for more faculty and more space and more this and more that for many, many years. At this moment, I do not want to argue anymore. I want to say, ‘Everyone must know how grateful we are.’ It’s thank you time.”
Music has been part of the fabric at Union since 1854, when the Glee Club was formed, but did not gain status as an academic discipline until the late 1960s. Since then the department, while attracting many students and offering a high-quality instruction, has been housed in the basement of Memorial Chapel, the Humanities Building and renovated science labs in the Arts Building.
So for many, the Taylor Music Center symbolizes the quality, importance and lasting impact of music education at Union—from today’s Choir to the former Glee Club to Jazz Ensemble to classes in composition, music history, performance and world music—all of it providing students with a window to the musical arts, foreign cultures and their own souls.
Ask professors like Tann, or student Heidi Ching ’10, or Robert Bernhardt ’73, conductor of the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, or Glee Club alumnus Jim Mastracco ’79, or former Music Department Chair Hugh Allen Wilson.
“What it does, to my mind, is to give a sense that the College values what music has to offer,” Tann said. “Music has been part of the add-on to the College. Now the College is saying, ‘We are complete. There is another side to being a student.’
There is a deep appreciation of something that is not words, that is not numbers.” The Taylor Music Center, which will be dedicated on May 5, is contained behind the original façade of the North Colonnade, part of Joseph-Jaques Ramée’s original campus design. The building’s wood-lined-heart is Emerson Auditorium, a 100-seat hall equipped with teaching space and state-of-the-art recording technology that will be used by the College’s Choir, Orchestra and Jazz Ensemble. Surrounding Emerson Auditorium on two floors are practice rooms, high-tech classrooms and faculty offices.
And as the renovation neared completion in December, President Stephen C. Ainlay agreed to spend roughly $250,000 on 13 new pianos, including a $55,000 Steinway concert piano purchased in early January at the piano maker’s warehouse near New York City. The piano was purchased with a gift from brothers Lawrence Pedowitz ’69 and David Pedowitz ’79. The concert grand will remain in Emerson Auditorium and smaller upright pianos will be located in faculty offices and student practice rooms.
“Personally, I use the piano every day. Music is a language and the piano is a natural vehicle for me to communicate things about the style, phrasing, structure, and the overall content of a particular work. I cannot imagine teaching without one,” said Dianne McMullen, a professor of music and College organist. “Union College students are fortunate to have the opportunity to play upon these instruments every day.”
Today there are about 15 music majors at Union and the department has seen an influx of non-majors seeking classes ranging from introduction to music theory to classes based on the Indonesian gamelan. [See story] The classes are prime examples of Union’s interdisciplinary approach to liberal arts education, something that alumni like Bernhardt say is indispensable. “I think for most great liberal arts colleges like Union, the borders are disappearing and the interaction between the disciplines is becoming even more pronounced,” Bernhardt said. “I think we become more complete people through the understanding of music. We understand how things relate.”
For students like Heidi Ching ’10, who is enrolled in the Leadership in Medicine Program involving Union College and Albany Medical College, the Taylor Music Center is a respite from science course work. Ching, who is from Toronto, is a member of the Choir and has been playing the piano since she was 5.
“When I play I can see and feel results. I feel I have accomplished something,” Ching said. “It takes discipline and determination. Because of the practice you put in, you achieve greater results. And I think you can apply that to everything that you do.”
A formal music division was formed in the late 1950s, about 30 years after Elmer Tidmarsh, the College’s first music director, began teaching a single music course. The faculty offices were first housed in the basement of Memorial Chapel, then briefly in the Humanities Building and later in the Arts Building, according to Wilson. Wilson, who was choral group leader and professor at Union from 1962 to 1996, chuckled when recalling the department’s moves “around the horseshoe.” In 1991 the College formed a Performing Arts Department, which included music and theatre. In 2005 an independent Music Department was formed.
In a passage in the College encyclopedia, Wilson’s predecessor, Edgar Curtis, discusses the move from the Humanities Building to the Arts Building: “While space was cramped, it was a giant step forward for disciplines that, in [then-President] Harold Martin’s words, had depended on the broom closet. (If others thought this was a figure of speech, the chairman knew it for a fact.)”
Wilson, as always, lives about 60 miles north of campus in Bolton Landing, N.Y. He has a stack of letters from alumni who fondly recall music class or their years in Glee Club. Both Bernhardt and Mastracco, who now sings in the Washington Men’s Camerata choral group, cite Wilson as a major inspiration. The group in nation’s capital is dedicated to preserving and promoting the legacy of men’s choral music, which was an integral part of College life from the 1930s through the 1970s.
“I’m still in touch with a lot of them. I have a pile of letters here from kids saying what an influence Glee Club and music classes have had on their life. They learned a lot more about life in Glee Club,” Wilson said.
The first chairman of the Arts Department was Edgar Curtis, who studied music under Sir Donald Tovey at the University of Edinburgh and was working as conductor of the Albany Symphony Orchestra before joining Union in 1956. The department’s faculty and course offerings slowly grew during the 1970s and 1980s. Tann was hired in the early 1980s and served as chairwoman of the music faculty from 1991 to 2003. Today Tim Olsen, who leads Jazz Ensemble and teaches largely in Emerson Auditorium, is chairman of the Music Department.
“The main thing is that now we have a dedicated space where we can plan things and make things happen. I am booking concerts and events now [for Emerson Auditorium],” Olsen said. The performance hall may evoke envy among the College’s former choral singers. The Glee Club, comprised of men until the early 1980s, was one of the top choral groups among northeastern colleges in 1970s, according to Wilson. The club boosted Union’s profile as music school on trips to schools like Harvard University and top-rated women’s colleges in the Northeast, Wilson said. The Glee Club, which merged with the Women’s Glee Club in the early 1980s to form the Choir, also carried off tours of nations ranging from Venezuela to Greece. In 2001 Professor McMullen led a group of chamber singers on a concert tour of England, performing at prestigious venues like Ely Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral.
“For many of us, Union was singing,” Mastracco said. “I vividly remember walking by the North Colonnade and hearing “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need” by Virgil Thompson. It is so American and this thing was coming out of the windows over the Arthur statue.”
In the Taylor Music Center, such melodies may not stream over the statue of former President Chester A. Arthur, they may stream out of a Mac computer. And that melody might be composed by a student. There are eight work stations in the Music Technology Studio where students can write music using a computer-connected keyboard and headphones. When students in Tann’s Introduction to Composition class are in playing and using headphones, they appear to be playing music that has no sound. Tann compares the sound to rain striking snow.
“It’s a hands-on learning experience. They hear what they are writing immediately.” Tann said. “They are completing assignments at twice the normal pace.”
How to pick a Steinway
When selecting a Steinway & Sons piano, it is best to consult two music professors and an electrical engineering professor who is also a concert pianist.
That’s exactly what the College arranged for on Jan. 11 at the Steinway factory in Long Island City, N.Y. Two music professors, Tim Olsen and Victor Klimash, joined Professor Palmyra E. Catravas and donor Lawrence Pedowitz ’68 to choose a piano in the factory’s selection room.
“We wanted one that had an even tone from the low to the high notes,” Olsen said. “It was kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, we wanted one that was just right.”
Steinway & Sons have been hand crafting top-quality pianos since 1853. The Steinway line, which includes Boston pianos and Essex pianos, are regarded as the gold standard in the music world. The College expects to earn a prestigious designation as an All-Steinway School after the pianos have been delivered and set up. Other All-Steinway Schools include the Yale School of Music and Oberlin College.
Olsen and Catravas played alternating jazz and classical pieces on five pianos in the selection room, said Sally Webster, who works in the College Relations Department. The team was seeking a piano with good tone and action, which is the resistance provided by the keys. They narrowed five Steinway B painos down to two and later selected one, which was the last one played. The Steinway B is a grand piano meant for a room like Emerson Hall and is used in professional recordings.
“Palma played all this great classical and 20th century music and the last piece she played was by a South American composer. It had this dynamic variety and just played loud and soft and high and low. That just sold us on it,” Olsen said.
The new piano was delivered to the stage in Emerson Hall on Jan. 17.
Students find harmony in Bali’s unique ensemble instrument
Two fall courses taught by a visiting Fulbright Scholar became a doorway to indonesian music and culture for roughly 28 Union College students.
Kotekan is an Indonesian word for the interlocking melody produced by the instruments of a gamelan. That concept can also be an educational gateway to another culture. The gamelan is played by an ensemble of musicians and is made up of several xylophones, large gongs, metallophones, drums, flutes, stringed instruments and cymbals.
In 2005 Union College bought a gamelan and last fall, with help from visiting Fulbright Scholar I Nyoman (Komang) Astita, offered a workshop and separate class dealing with the gamelan and the Indonesian island of Bali.
The gamelan courses were part a growing set of world music classes aimed at introducing students to foreign cultures through music. A course called Introduction to World Music delves into music from Africa, South Asia and Europe. That course can be followed up with upper-level offerings like the one led by Astita.
“We believe that when you learn something seriously and respect what you learn that you are gonna get some kind of a power to perform or express your thinking,” Astita said. “We have a kind of interlocking part called a kotekan. It is a melody being played by two musicians. They become one. [Students] feel it. They learn how to work with other people and how to respond correctly.”
Astita, who is 54 but looks 34, discussed his term at Union College in an interview in early December in the former music classrooms. Astita was set to perform a Cornell University and Bard College before returning to Bali in late December.
The College’s gamelan is called “Gita Semara,” which is a Sanskrit phrase meaning “song of love,” and was acquired by Assistant Professor Jennifer Matsue, an expert in ethnomusicology. Matsue studied in Japan as part of her graduate work and recently spent a term teaching at Japan’s Kansai Gaidai University.
“You can’t study world music without understanding political systems and religious systems,” Matsue said. “Music doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s all encompassing. It reflects the cultures that produce it.”
Last fall about 14 Union College students joined Astita in a class called The Music and Culture of Bali and separate group of roughly 14 completed a workshop called The Asian Percussion Workshop. Astita is a world-renowned composer and expert in all instruments of the gamelan and led a student performance on Oct. 30, 2006 at the Nott Memorial.
“We started just by learning a bit about Bali and its culture. After a day or so, we started jumping right on the instruments. We just sat down wherever we wanted,” said Tom Perry ’09.
Perry has been playing the piano for 15 years and has some drumming experience. He is working toward a double major in physics and music and completed the gamelan workshop.
“If you wanted to get technical, each instrument has a wave length and sound vibration, but it’s more applicable in terms of giving you a broader mindset and helping you think of things in a different way. It’s more an exercise in creativity,” Perry said.
Kotekan includes two parts of the gamelan melody, called nyangsih and polos, which are thought of as male and female parts of the music. The nyangsih notes are played on the off beat and the polos parts are played with the beat.
“The way they teach and learn music is really completely different than how we do it in Western music. There is nothing that is written down. It is all based on memory,” said Derek Mayer ’07, a student in the culture class who frequently played with the workshop students. “It showed me that there is a whole different way of learning.”
Bali is an island of about 3 million people located just south of the equator in the Republic of Indonesia. The largest city, Denpasar, is home to about 370,000, and is also the city where Astita lives.
The Oct. 30 show at the Nott featured a dance and music performance. Astita’s brother, I Ketut Gede Asnawa, a professor at the University of Illinois—Urbana, and Asnawa’s daughter, Ayu Putu Niastarika, joined in the dance and music performance.
Both Mayer and Perry performed on Oct. 30 with Astita, whom they called “Pak,” an honorific term used in Bali. Mayer is an economics major who plays in a rock band called First on Mars, which is based in his hometown of Philadelphia. He played a flute-like instrument in the gamelan ensemble.
The Union College gamelan will be kept in a new world music room in the Taylor Music Center, said Tim Olsen, chair of the music department. Students who complete courses on East Asian studies will use the gamelan and a taeko ensemble—Japanese drums—as part of their coursework.