Cohen auditorium destroys music at Tufts

On November 15, the Tufts Symphony Orchestra put on a concert in Boston's Faneuil Hall. There, the most amazing thing happened: somewhere between 400-500 people showed up, nearly packing the performance space! We played our program: Mahler's Symphony No. 1. When we finished the fourth movement on our last two fortissimo notes, the crowd surprised me again: they gave us a standing ovation!

The last time I remember receiving a standing ovation in the Boston area was, in fact, our last performance in Faneuil Hall. Actually, all but two of the standing ovations we have received, in my five-year tenure with the Tufts Symphony Orchestra, happened at somewhere other than Tufts. The TSO has brought audiences to their feet several times, in Germany, France, Jamaica, Portugal, and Greece, but only twice ever in Medford.

Why? Could it be that Tufts students are too picky about their music? Maybe foreigners simply like us better. I don't think so. First, the majority of our Faneuil Hall audiences are Tufts students. Second, in all venues where we have played, from palaces to middle schools, we have always sounded better than in our home "performance" hall, Cohen Auditorium. I quote "performance" because Cohen Auditorium was not built for music or theater: it was built as a lecture hall, engineered to dampen reverberation rather than to nurture and cultivate it. A musician may spend thousands of dollars on an instrument because the instrument is vital to the sound of the musician. Likewise, the hall is vital to the sound of the group. To put it simply: echo is important.

Sometimes hearing is believing. So, I have put up a comparison on my website: http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~tshevlin/. There, you will find two MP3 files: one is the last 30 seconds of last year's concert in Faneuil Hall, and the other is the last 30 seconds of the same program, but in Cohen Auditorium. We cannot make an acoustic comparison, unfortunately, as we digitally added reverb to our Cohen recording after the fact.

What you can get out of it is an idea of audience appreciation. If you listen to the Cohen recording, you might ask yourself, "Where's the applause? Did anyone even show up to this concert?" Welcome to the hall that was deliberately designed to destroy sound. People aren't inclined to clap or even attend concerts in Cohen because we never sound good enough there. It is incredibly demoralizing. To paraphrase a friend of mine, "Former All-State musicians come to Cohen and sound like seventh graders again." When one Tufts musician I know first heard the sound in Cohen, he cried.

What are the solutions? The TSO is making one right now by performing off-campus. However, this is an amazing hassle; it requires an entire day's work by dedicated members of the orchestra, and even more prep time. One may say that another solution lies in the new music building that many of us will never see while students at Tufts; I hear that it is supposed to have a marvelous performance space. Unfortunately, the hall is more a recital space than anything else. The stage will not be large enough to fit our 80-member ensemble, nor will the hall be sufficient to accommodate the crowds we sometimes draw.

Tufts lacks both the financial resources and the space to build a large, good performance hall. The most viable solution I see would be to renovate Cohen. It is possible that simply ripping up the carpet or installing acoustic paneling over the walls and ceiling might make a dramatic difference for a relatively low cost. To the best of my knowledge as a student, nobody has ever examined this. A full-out renovation is the best idea, if Tufts wants to make the investment. It doesn't just have to return itself on future students: Harvard has such a wonderful acoustic space that it rents it out at a cost of ~$2,000/night. The Boston Philharmonic performs there regularly, as do many other prominent groups and soloists. With a great hall at Tufts, we could do the same. It could be a wonderful connection to the community, and possibly a money-maker, as well.

As with sports teams, a university's performance groups are a reflection of that school. My public high school had a better auditorium than Tufts, and sadly, that's quite common, as other musicians have told me. A renovation to Cohen would benefit not only the orchestra, but other groups who rely on good acoustics, such as most Music Department or drama organizations on campus. It would boost morale among those groups, and performers would perform better. (TSO musicians always work hard, but we always seem to pull harder when the hall is up to par with the orchestra.)

Two weeks ago, for our Faneuil Hall concert, the TSO rented a 17-foot truck, loaded up all the chairs, stands, extra music, and percussion from Tufts and drove it into Boston. (Try driving one of these through downtown and the Big Dig -- not fun.) Celli and basses were piled into the Drama Department's van. Everyone else had to carry their own instrument on the T.

Unloading and setting up in Faneuil was an hour-long process. Loading took even longer. We had to load and unload twice that day, in addition to performing a three-hour intensive dress rehearsal and a one-hour concert. Our concert ended somewhere between 9:15 and 9:30 pm. By the time we were finished and had returned our rental truck to Cambridge, it was almost 2:00 am. A full day's job for a one-hour concert. Prep work took an additional 20-30 man-hours, as well. But, you know what? To sound that good once more, I would do it again in a second. And, we certainly will, this spring.

Ted Shevlin is a graduate student "double Jumbo" studying computer science.