At our dress rehearsal in Thwing last Tuesday, things weren’t where they were supposed to be. Somewhat miraculously, our concert went off very well last night. Oh, sure, there were the occasional missed entrances (heh, many of the 1st violins in the second movement of Schubert’s Unfinished nearly forgot to come back in for a measure) and some funky sounds here and there….but nothing too bad. We really sounded great on the opening piece, La Gazza Ladra (The thieving Magpie) by G. Rossini [trust me, you've heard this piece a thousand times before in cartoons and commercials - it's a fun piece]. The soloists, Kevin Blum on Clarinet performing the Von-Weber concerto and Chunrui Tan performing the Vieuxtemps violin concerto, both did exceptionally well.
What we really need is a performance and rehearsal hall. Thwing Ballroom just wasn’t designed for such an event. The acoustics, lighting, and seating are all pretty bad. Due to the high open ceiling, sound bounces in very odd ways. There is very little lighting, making it difficult to read the music for long periods of time. Seating for the concertgoers are folding chairs - and we fill the hall every time. My 900-student public highschool had a better venue than this. Not to mention, our concert was rescheduled with less than a week before due to a scheduling conflict that arose (supposedly) due to an outside group that payed to use the place took our time (since we do not pay).
Dr. Horvath has been pleading with the Case administration to get this problem fixed for longer than I have been a student at Case. A possible solution would be to renovate a delapitade school building down on East 115th - which by some estimates would cost $15 million. It is an interesting plan. The building is off Case’s campus, but it is not a very far walk from northside of campus. I am unsure why we can’t just work with CIM to borrow Kulas hall for a two concerts a semester. The Cleveland School of the Arts hosted their Black Heritage concert there - and they aren’t even part of Case. Renovating and building a new hall would be ideal, but I still find it hard to believe that we can’t find the alumni and or Case community connections to book an existing hall in the University Circle area. Severance Hall (supposedly) costs $10,000 to book, yet the Case Symphonic Winds performs every concert there. Where is all this money coming from, where is it going, and why is the Case Orchestra left out of the picture?