School Orchestra Performance: Amateurish & Cringeworthy

[Moonbear]

- I don't consider college students in a college orchestra as 'amateurs'. I would assume they want to be professional musicans one day.

I already explained this way back in the thread, but you ignored it. The concert might be free because they are NOT aspiring musicians, just a group of students who ENJOY playing their instruments as a hobby who have formed an orchestra. One should not expect professional quality. Even if they are performing arts students, they will be of different levels in the orchestra...the seniors may be drowned out by freshmen who still need more experience performing for an audience to get critiques and learn to improve.

- I don't 'perceive' professionalism, I know what it is because I've seen it.

- My high school band had uniforms.

Uniforms don't define professionalism. Again, I brought this up earlier. Not every orchestra or choir has uniforms or dress codes. It depends on the conductor. Besides, orchestras are NOT marching bands; there aren't "uniforms" for orchestras. If you want them all to wear tuxes for their performances, get out your checkbook and send them a donation so they can afford them, otherwise quit complaining.

I never even said this. I said in the intermession they went off the stage and into the crowd.

What is wrong with them mingling with the crowd during the intermission? It seems you have a very narrow experience with orchestra performances and expect them all to be done exactly as the few you've seen. I think it's a nice idea for the performers to get to mingle with the crowd a bit so people can meet them and learn more about their ambitions, etc.

-I wasnt blown away by their music, and their lack of professionalism made things ten times worse than they could have been.

Again, at a university level, they are still learning to be performers, sometimes you just have to fill seats. It's not like a professional orchestra where people get paid and they can recruit the best performers from around the country or world.

Heres a thought, save up about 100 bucks, buy yourself a ticket to a professional orchestra, and see how people behave there. You might learn something about class.

I don't need to spend $100 to know something about class, and tend to find that the pretentious people who think they can buy class are the ones most lacking it.

Your ranting is akin to someone complaining about their college football team not performing like a pro team, not having the same pretty uniforms, and not having the best coaches. Of course they don't...the top players/performers will get selected for those professional groups, but at the college level you're still selecting from your local population. Does UMD even have any sort of reputation for having a good school of performing arts? I haven't heard of it.

 

[Moonbear]

Taking a quick peek at UMDs music websites, here is the group you listened to if it was Monday night's performance:

UM Repertoire Orchestra — The University of Maryland Repertoire Orchestra (UMRO) is a unique all-campus orchestra open to music majors and non-music majors alike, as well as UM faculty and staff. The ensemble performs three full concerts per academic year, as well as occasional performances at the university-wide celebration of Maryland Day. Led by two members of the graduate conducting studio, UMRO meets for rehearsal twice per week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Repertoire varies based on instrumentation and consists of works for chamber and full orchestra.

http://www.music.umd.edu/ensembles/orchestras

It is NOT their symphony orchestra that is composed of music majors aspiring for careers in music, just as suspected, it is a group of people who just like playing music and do it for fun, not for a career. You cannot expect that to be the same level of performance. It's more like church choirs where you can get really great choirs some year and others you just have to take whoever is willing to volunteer and they can sound pretty awful.