Private lessons and small ensembles are an important facet of the music department’s initiative towards increasing music-making among Penn’s undergraduate students. But in recent years the well-established large ensembles, such as the University Symphony Orchestra and the University Choral Society also boast burgeoning membership with increased percentages of student participants. These days, students are given the option of  enrolling for academic credit: both semesters must be completed to receive the equivalent of a single credit, and enrolled students must sit a rigorous final exam administered by the ensemble director.

“We try as much as possible to use students and members of the Penn community in every position in the orchestra,” says Music Director and Conductor Brad Smith, who  arrived at Penn in the fall of 2003 and lives on the Music Floor of Hamilton College House with his wife Becki and their three-year-old daughter, Emily (baby number two was due in June).

 “In the past, the orchestra may have relied more on ringers, but we now use them only in the hardest-to-find positions, like bass trombone and harp,” says Smith. Interest among undergraduates in Penn’s orchestra is on an upswing. “In our September [2004] auditions we had to turn away 15 violins. We have a full viola section, and violists can be hard to find. Overall, our membership in the orchestra has increased from 70 in 2003 to 85 this year. The wind ensemble has grown from 40 members to 50.”

In September 2004, with Judd’s help, Smith launched the Penn Sinfonia, a 24-piece chamber orchestra comprised of the top student players from the University Symphony Orchestra. A College House Music Fellow sits in the principal chair and leads each section. The Sinfonia’s debut performance at Amy Gutmann’s  inaugural celebration featured selections from Grieg, Handel, and Purcell, the latter performed in conjunction with the University Choir, directed by William Parberry.

Smith, who also directs the University Wind Ensemble, the Penn Brass Ensemble, and the Penn Percussion Ensemble, earned his degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Texas at Austin. He confesses that he never expected to find himself at a university without a performance department. “If you’d asked me during my Ph.D. program whether Penn would be the ideal program for me, I wouldn’t have thought so,” he says. “Penn’s music department is known mainly in academic circles for its prominent faculty in theory, history, and composition. Everyone says, ‘George Crumb’ when they think of Penn. Which is fine. It doesn’t make sense for Penn to be all things to all people in music. We have our niche.

“Our programs reach students who might not otherwise have any musical experience during their time at Penn,” Smith adds. “And these are students of the highest quality. Many of them—particularly string players, thanks to the Suzuki movement—have been playing since age three. There is a lot of natural talent here.”

Of course, being a music director at a school like Penn is not without its frustrations. For the most part, music remains a pleasure, not a priority, among Smith’s students. “It’s my priority, of course, but I don’t take it personally,” he says. “For example, last semester seven of my students had an exam scheduled during the dress rehearsal two days before our big concert. I can think of nothing but Stravinsky, and they have a stat midterm. Yet we survived, and the concert was great.”

“I’ve worked closely with Brad for over a year now,” enthuses College junior and trumpeter Michael Mauskapf. “He’s made the ensembles better, and he’s taken a personal interest in the department, looking to better use our monetary resources—which are surprisingly small. He has not only helped my skill as an orchestral player, but has also counseled me on musicianship and grad school.”

Mauskapf is one Penn student who does make music his priority. Principal trumpet in the University Symphony Orchestra, the Wind Ensemble, and the Penn Brass Ensemble, he entered Penn as a chemistry major, but soon switched his allegiance to the music department. This past year he served as Student Activities Council representative to the music department, as well as manager and librarian for the University ensembles along with his roommate, Wharton School sophomore Ryan Namdar.

“Ryan also plays the trumpet, although I didn’t originally know it,” Mauskapf explains. “We were freshman roommates, and when I unpacked my trumpet he mentioned that he played, but hadn’t brought his instrument to school. I forced him to have his parents send it, and by the spring semester, he was playing alongside of me in all the groups.”

Mauskapf and Namdar met their current trumpet teacher, College House Fellow Darin Kelly last fall. Mauskapf credits Kelly with helping him return his playing to its former level, when he was a high-school trumpet star considering applying to conservatories. Currently, Mauskapf dreams of playing in a top-tier orchestra, but he knows those positions are hard to come by. A true liberal-arts student, Mauskapf sees his future as wide open: “I may look into a graduate degree in music ed, history, performance. Or I might do a law degree—I change my mind daily!”

If Symphony Orchestra Conductor Brad Smith is the new kid on the block, then Bill Parberry is the music department’s old head. A tenor trained at the New England Conservatory and an accomplished amateur jazz pianist, Parberry received a master’s degree in conducting at Temple University and was working towards his Ph.D. in musicology at Penn when the music department hired him to conduct the Choral Society. That was 35 years ago, and Parberry, whose youthful looks belie his long tenure, has been here ever since, leading the University Choral Society, an inclusive ensemble of about 125 singers, and the elite University Choir, which consists of 35 singers culled from the larger group. In the mid-1990s Parberry took over the leadership of Ancient Voices, a professional-quality early-music group descended from the now-defunct Collegium Musicum. Ancient Voices is comprised of graduate students, music professionals, and a few undergraduates, and sometimes works in cooperation with other department-sponsored early-music groups on campus: the Penn Baroque Ensemble and Recorder Ensemble, both led by Gwyn Roberts.

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