Orchestras in Small Colleges of Northeastern United States

Abstract

SINCE 1946 THE AUTHOR has been the conductor of the orchestra at the State University College at Cortland, New York. From 1946 until 1952 the orchestra personnel was allstudent in nature, but in 1952 the membership was broadened to include faculty and musicians from surrounding communities. Through the years the writer has encountered many problems concerned with the general operation of a college orchestra, and has sought answers to such problems in published literature, attendance at professional conferences, and personal interviews with other college orchestra directors while attending such conferences. To his dismay, very little assistance has been found in any of these areas. There seems to be very little literature available on the subject, comparatively few meetings at professional conferences are devoted to problems of college orchestras and there has seemed to be a dearth of orchestra conductors at such conferences. Obviously, it could be very easy to conclude that, in fact, there actually are very few college orchestras in existence today, which could account for the absence of (1) appropriate literature, (2) professional meetings, and (3) orchestra directors. To determine if this really were true, a plan of research was devised to ascertain certain facts pertaining to the status of college orchestras on campuses today. The Study Two short questionnaires were prepared, and sent to a random sampling of the music departments of one hundred private and tax-supported colleges with an undergraduate enrollment under 3000 in the states comprising the Eastern Music Educators Conference. Such delimitations were