The Crescendo of an Orchestra
Spring 2007

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It begins with stillness and anticipation. The conductor raises his arms. The players sit poised, all eyes upon him, waiting for his lead. Then, with one plunge of his baton, the orchestra embarks on their journey. Small movements of the bows lead into the melody, which the woodwinds carry forward. The brass join in, giving rise to the thunderous rumble of the timpani, signifying the culmination of the score.

And so it is with growth of Augsburg’s orchestra. What existed for years as primarily a strings ensemble under the very capable direction of Paul Ousley has gained momentum and volume under Douglas Diamond’s leadership. Diamond joined the Augsburg faculty in the fall of 2005 with the charge to expand the chamber ensemble into a full-fledged orchestra.

“The initial question was, can the orchestra be filled?” Diamond remembers. Having developed the orchestra programs at both Luther College and Grinnell College, Diamond says Augsburg differs from them in that two-thirds of the students are commuters. “It’s looking like it can… It requires coordination between the music and admissions departments, and a certain amount of getting the word out on the campus.”

The word must be spreading, because the orchestra has grown from 27 when Diamond started to its current roster of 43. Within two to three years, Diamond expects the ensemble to reach 60 to 80.

“The sound of the strings since my freshman year has developed tri-fold,” says junior Walter Gies, who is concertmaster of the Augsburg Symphony Orchestra. “The sound is so much further developed – it’s really rich and full and sounds like an orchestra. Our numbers are growing. We have a lot of really good freshmen, and the group dynamic, more than any other year, is a positive peer culture and group dynamic. We’ve been working a lot on ensemble issues – playing together, initiating together, breathing together. The fact that we have a lot of positive social aspects, too, really transfers over to the music.”

In addition to the orchestra, which meets Tuesdays and Thursdays, many of the students take private lessons and participate in small ensembles. These small projects, according to Gies, feed the sound of the orchestra.

“Doug is our coach,” Gies says of his own octet. “This is a true indicator of Doug’s dedication – he comes in every Saturday, takes us out to coffee, and then coaches us for an hour. That’s above and beyond. His goal is to get our octet to be completely autonomous.”

Diamond attributes the uniqueness of Augsburg’s music department to the private studios, and the adjuncts, who, in Diamond’s words, are “top notch.”

Diamond looks back to the key figures in the history of Augsburg’s music department, Robert Karlen and Leland Sateren. He says their vision was to combine the strong points of the two models of a music department – the conservatory, with its exceptional private instruction, with an ensemble-driven model, which Diamond suspects “stems from the tremendous formidable Lutheran choral tradition that’s lasted 500 years.” This means that today, Augsburg offers both strong ensembles and a conservatory model of studio teaching.

“They created an ensemble-driven department of the Lutheran tradition, where the ensembles were the core of the department, and yet with conservatory-quality private studios,” says Diamond. “Unlike many of the other Lutheran colleges, we have access to conservatory-level adjuncts. All of the prominent conservatories have to be smack in the middle of a city. Augsburg is smack in the middle of a city.”

The students directly benefit from the Minneapolis location. “It’s all over the place. Art is everywhere in the city. Everywhere you look, you’ll find something,” says Gies. “I’m really into the local, hardcore music scene. I go to a lot of Minnesota Orchestra and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra concerts, too. The Music Department has access to a lot of tickets for students.”

“I love how Doug gets everyone involved in the creation of the orchestra,” says Gies. “We’re all in this together, and we’re all excited about making this orchestra become something great. Where we can all make music together. We’re not doing this for Doug – we’re doing this for each other. It really has a feeling of solidarity.”