Quotas, HRO Style

Almost everyone is involved in the controversy--Dean Epps, Conductor Yannatos, most Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra members--agrees that a 100 per cent Harvard Orchestra would be ideal. Almost no one agrees, however, on how best to attain that goal, or even on whether it can ever be attained.

In a move that could have a major impact on all University performing organizations, but that was directed most specifically at HRO, Archie C. Epps III, dean of students, last week said that he would ask CHUL to crack down on the number of non-Harvard musicians in HRO.

Epps said that he wanted the orchestra to shoot for all-Harvard, that he would set 90 per cent as an absolute minimum, and that any outsider HRO wanted to admit would likely have to be approved by a committee on which Epps would sit.

James D. Yannatos, conductor of the orchestra, said that Epps' involvement was an "encroachment" and that setting a "binding" percentage would never work.

Most HRO members seem to feel that there is a logical middleground. All but one contacted yesterday agreed that HRO should take as many Harvard students as it could, and definitely more than the 80 per cent it took this year.

But most players also felt that it would be a mistake to make any absolute decrees, because there may be years when Harvard simply cannot fill its trombone, or tuba, or bass sections. "If Harvard recruited more musicians--and offered them more here--that problem wouldn't arise," one violinist said.

Several students added that the University is in a weak position to set policy because it gives the orchestra such meagre support. "HRO is an independent organization," Stephen Pershing '79, a first violinist said. "It's very important that Yannatos have a right to choose his own people and conduct his own orchestra."