“For many instrumentalists, the main point of music school is to emerge having learned to function in an orchestra, that biggest ocean of ensembles,” writes Peter Dobrin in Saturday’s (3/6) Philadelphia Inquirer. “At the Curtis Institute of Music, exactly a year has passed since the last time the orchestra of world-class musicians in training was able to meet… ‘I never really thought I would miss it so much,’ says 20-year-old violinist Maya Anjali Buchanan, a third-year student at Curtis, [which is] holding instrumental lessons and classes online…. ‘There is nothing that can replace the orchestral experience,’ says Joseph Conyers, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s acting associate principal bassist…. [However], playing in a smaller ensemble develops the skill of being more in control of the sound of the ensemble … Many are eager for orchestras to return, but … ‘We don’t really want to go back to status quo,’ says [conductor Thomas] Wilkins…. ‘We are now faced with the opportunity to present the great canon from the past but also encourage the present and the future, and now doing it through a different lens that speaks to the inclusivity necessary to go forward.’ ” Also covered is Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance in Philadelphia.
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