Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a trend in community orchestras: the repertoire and rehearsal schedules are becoming INSANE. Programs featuring Liszt Les Préludes, Bartók Concerto for Orchestra, that wild Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker arrangement, Strauss tone poems, and the like. These ambitious pieces are tough for professionals, but my students are being asked to get these things into shape in just a handful of rehearsals. I’ve also noticed that the tempos taken are aggressive, to put it mildly.

I cannot for the life of me divine what these decisions are driving at. The purpose of a community orchestra is different from the purpose of a professional orchestra, even if their output—the finest possible performance to share with an audience—is uncannily similar. A community orchestra is a vehicle for the members of that community to come together, learn, and create art. The expectations of any ensemble need to be tempered to suit the people manufacturing the music, not to fulfill the person on the podium’s delusions of grandeur or whatever other misguided instincts are causing this nightmare to permeate. I understand that there are many more highly skilled professional conductors than there are professional orchestras to hire them. I understand this on a very personal level, as there are also many more highly skilled cello instructors than there are academic institutions with vacancies. When I taught at a community college, I had high expectations similar—but not identical—to those I would bring to a conservatory environment. But those expectations are based on the goals of the students, their overall aptitude, and what could reasonably be asked of them. So the standard flexes to be equal to the realistic expectations one can impose on a cohort of players.

I realize I am being incredibly pointy here—won’t someone sympathize with the conductors? The short answer is no, not really. There is so much repertoire out there! So much unexplored and underplayed music that is well within reach; there is no excuse for sabotaging one’s colleagues (and that is what they are; you are not above them) just because Little Jane Wants To Play Ein Heldenleben or Poor Scotty Never Got To Conduct Mahler 5. Aside from creating a separate proto-professional group expressly for these pieces, there are ways to expose your players to the most aggressive works in the rep: here’s the curriculum, free of charge:

• Select one magnum opus per year.
• Have a standalone rehearsal to listen to the work, point out tough spots, open the floor for questions, discuss the significance and context of the piece.
• Once a month, have an über rehearsal where the hardest parts are worked on in sectionals and then run through as an ensemble.
• Consider making the concert one where professionals mingle in the sections. Have them join in the rehearsals in the month or two leading up to the performance. This makes the musical result come into focus more quickly and is an excellent way to foster mentorship.
• If tempos need to be moderated, do it. If the majority of any section is faking, either slow it down or cut the movement. I have played multiple programs where we played the first 2 or 3 movements of a lengthy and/or difficult piece.

If you’re a community orchestra conductor and the above ideas sound like heresy, I feel sad for you. Music makes life worth living for many of us— that your reserves of common sense and empathy are so low must make every day a mystery and a disappointment. But you should be most disappointed in yourself. By wishing you were at the helm of some other ensemble under other circumstances, you are short changing the people you do have the honor of working with. So ask yourself this: if I wanted to turn a group of unpaid, volunteer musicians against me, what would be the quickest possible way to do that? Perhaps being personally insulting has the edge here, but I’d say that repeatedly setting them up for failure by asking for too much in too little time, then flogging them at rehearsal for the failures you set them up for seems pretty effective.

Do better!