Music Department Tries Again to Give Credit to Orchestra

The Music Department may offer letter graded credit for performance in the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra (HRO) next year, despite the Faculty Council's decision last week to reject a similar, ungraded course, the department's chairman said yesterday.

Eliot Forbes '40, Peabody Professor of Music, said the department voted this week to propose a letter-graded course in orchestra that would give students a half-year credit for a year's performance.

Although departmental courses require approval of the Faculty, such approval is usually pro forma. However, the Faculty Council has asked Forbes and James D. Yannatos, senior lecturer on Music and director of the HRO, to discuss the department's latest proposal with the council next week.

The original proposal went to the Faculty Council because the course was to be given on a credit/non-credit basis only. Such courses require the specific approval of the full Faculty.

Several council members said last week that the council preferred to wait for the report of the Council of the Arts before making decisions to grant credit for performance.

Credit for the Arts

"The issue here is that at this time we are in a dialogue with the Faculty Council about credit for the arts," Forbes said. "It's a long-range problem, and we ought to explore it fully before we go ahead."

About ten of the more than 80 students now playing in the orchestra are enrolled this spring in Music 91r, "Special Projects in Music." The course focuses on performance in the HRO. Yannatos said yesterday.

But Music 91r, he said, includes more seminars and papers than would the proposed half-credit course.

Yannatos said students would qualify for the HRO course by audition, and would be graded on their performance and attendance at rehearsals.

But, Yannatos said, he does not know how many students would want to enroll in a course on orchestra.

"Where the academic pressure is so great, students need something to sustain their commitment," Yannatos said. "Right now, the thing that goes on your transcript is Chem 20, not orchestra."