“Between Eric and Marcus, we’re going to see contemporary music ensembles, like bands and combos, become centralized,” Johnson says. “So [the students have] faculty time and coaching and support in the department, and appearances in our concert series in a way that you’re used to seeing the Symphony Orchestra and the Concert Choir.”
“There is a lot of momentum toward expanding what kind of music is taught in musical academia,” adds Schultz. “It’s really exciting to think we’re going to be on the forefront of that.”
Looking back, and looking ahead
As 2020 approached, and each department planned for how to commemorate 50 years of coeducation at Exeter, Johnson and his colleagues decided to commission an original composition for the Concert Choir and Chamber Orchestra to perform. In the interest of representing new viewpoints and styles, they sought a young composer, and someone who didn’t identify as male. After interviewing a number of people, and narrowing it down to a pool of finalists, the core music faculty chose Tanner Porter, a composer-performer, songwriter and visual artist from California whose work blurs the boundaries between classical and contemporary music.
As Porter began meeting virtually with students in the choir and orchestra last fall, she also met with members of the Feminist Club and students in the class Music and Protest, taught by Music Instructor Rohan Smith. “The idea from the beginning was to get to work with as many students as possible, even those who don’t necessarily have a musical interest,” Porter says. “Those who might be interested in the piece just in terms of the concept, and being a part of the conversation.”
Porter started by giving the students an introduction to her process of composition, in which storytelling plays a central role. “The idea was to build up a common language,” she says. As she began writing the piece itself, she brought selections to the Zoom sessions for feedback.
“The students were from the beginning a very active part of the workshopping process for me,” Porter says. “It was definitely a good learning experience for me, and very humbling to get to open up my creative process to 70 young people.”
As part of her research for the composition, Porter interviewed several women from Exeter’s early graduating classes after coeducation was adopted in 1970, including Theater and Dance Instructor Sarah Ream ’75. She also interviewed Jacquelyn “Jackie” Thomas ’45, ’62, ’69 (Hon.); P’78, P’79, P’81, and Susan Herney ’69, ’74,’ 83 (Hon.), two of the first women on Exeter’s faculty. These conversations, and especially those she had with current students, inspired the central themes of Porter’s composition, which she has titled “Ease the Roads.”
“One of the things [the students] said from the beginning was that they were interested in a piece that when it ends, it doesn’t really feel like it’s ended because this is an ongoing conversation,” says Porter. “I was definitely interested in writing a piece that looks forward into the future…. [as well as] this idea that every generation is working for the next generation to not have to work quite so hard, or in quite the same ways.”
Porter turned in the completed composition at the end of winter term and will continue to help make adjustments as rehearsals go forward. To accommodate a larger audience, the final performance will be livestreamed on YouTube from “The Bowld,” in the Class of 1959 Music Building Addition’s performance space.
>> Watch the premiere of "Ease the Roads" performed by Exeter’s Concert Choir and Chamber Orchestra
Johnson lauds the “genre-expanding nature” of Porter’s work. “It’s hard to pigeonhole exactly where it belongs in terms of style,” he says. “It’s really exciting to get out of the historical canon and be trying to create something new and fresh and interesting.”
Welcoming new voices
The smaller world necessitated by the pandemic has also seen another member of the Music Department join forces with the Theater and Dance Department to ensure the continued vibrancy of musical performance at Exeter. In mid-March, the latter department staged What Comes Next?, the musical that Choral Assistant Intern Jerome Walker co-wrote as part of his senior thesis at Yale University. Walker also served as musical director and pianist for the production.
In his second year working at Exeter, Walker has taken on an increasing number of responsibilities. In addition to working with the Concert Choir and directing the Choral Union, he taught a general music listening course in the winter term, and will teach a course in music theory in the spring. He’s also an adviser for the Gender and Sexuality Alliance and related student affinity groups, including one for queer students of color.
What Comes Next? is the poignant story of a couple and their daughter, dealing with the sudden death of their son and her brother — and the uncertainty of their future without him — on the anniversary of his untimely death. Walker and Lauren Josef, chair of the Theater and Dance Department, thought the play would be suitable for pandemic times because of its relatively small cast of seven.
They decided to double-cast the show in order to include more students. “But we had so many fantastic people come out in auditions that ... to only cast 14 people in something this term was just not enough,” Walker says. To open the door even wider to student performers, they decided to put together a cabaret show called The Bad Side. “We did all kinds of campy, creepy villain songs from musicals,” Walker says. Rehearsals for the cabaret were “a lot of fun,” he says, and a good balance for the heavy emotional themes of What Comes Next?
Auditions for both productions were held over Zoom, along with a majority of the rehearsals; the first in-person rehearsal took place near the end of February. Actors wore masks, and a small audience watched the four live productions of the musical, along with a livestream of each production on YouTube.