Students Perform Traditional Music in Conservatory Despite Lack of Resources

Delaney Fox Conservatory Editor

Within the Conservatory, students are limited in study and access to a specific set of musical instruments that draw mainly from the Western classical tradition. This causes a lack of spaces for students wishing to practice instruments and music that are directly linked to their heritage and culture. How, then, do Conservatory students create and find spaces on campus to practice traditional music?

Spaces within the Conservatory do exist for students who want to perform traditional music from around the world on their primary instruments. Second-year Jazz Voice major Aanya Sengupta, for example, has found a community where she can practice traditional music through the Performance and Improvisation Ensemble.

“The goal of the program is to really bring together musicians and practitioners that come from different traditions and musical backgrounds to make music together — to make art together,” Sengupta said.

The ensembles vary in size and instrumentation, as students from both the Jazz and classical departments collaborate in these spaces. This unconventional mix of instruments presents a unique challenge for students, requiring them to figure out not only the larger orchestration but also how to adapt one’s instrument individ- ually to the sound or technique of the traditional music they are working with.

“It’s about being a part of this other music and just adapting to the music you’re playing,” Sengupta said. “That comes from paying attention to the tradition that it came from and seeing what you can do with your instrument — exploring the limits of the instrument a lot.”

Sengupta stressed the importance of learning about the history and culture of the musical tradition students are working with in order to approach the music respectfully, especially considering the biases of our musical institution.

“There’s this attitude toward music from China, from India — where I’m from — from Latin America that is very exoticized, which is the value of the PI program,” Sengupta said. “This music becomes the norm, and it becomes just as worthy of study as the music in the classical department[s], in the Jazz department.”

Sengupta grew up learning Hindustani classical music before starting jazz voice lessons in high school. She communicated her appreciation for the PI ensembles as a space to reconnect with the music she studied growing up as well as the many other traditions she gets to interact with.

“To this day, if there’s one regret I have, it’s that I wish I had kept studying Indian music and given it the respect then that I give it now,” Sengupta said. For students who don’t see their traditional music represented within the Conservatory, they create their own spaces. Second-year Bass Performance major Emily Bergin grew up playing traditional Irish music on a multitude of instruments including the tin whistle, accordion, Irish flute, harmonica, and mandolin. This semester, she is offering an Irish music ExCo.

“I’ve played Irish music since I was in second grade,” Bergin said.

“I wanted to continue passing that on to other people because it’s not an extremely common thing; not a lot of people know a whole bunch about it, but there’s a good amount of interest for it.”

Because Irish traditional music is orally transmitted, the melodies and forms are quite accessible to less experienced musicians. Although the Conservatory does not provide Bergin’s ExCo with instruments, she emphasized that Irish traditional music can be played on any instrument, and her students come to class with whatever they have.

Bergin also found a community for her passion within the Oberlin Contra Dance Club, a club for American folk dance with music provided by student folk musicians, and the Oberlin Folk Music Club, both of which are student-run groups that span both the College and Conservatory. These groups often hold jam sessions and connect students on campus who play all styles of folk music.

Like Bergin, second-year Viola Performance major and composer Katia Rumin experiments with playing and composing folk music at Oberlin through the Folk Music Club and Contra Dance Club. Because folk music differs technically from classical music See Students, page 13