With the recent Oakland University campus closure, over 15,000 students are adjusting to classes being moved online or even off campus. However, performing arts majors are impacted differently.
Varner Hall is home to OU’s School of Music, Theatre and Dance, housing all of the performance, practice, and storage spaces for students and faculty alike. The end of the semester is typically when many final performances and concerts are held. This means the emergency maintenance has rescheduled or cancelled many scheduled concerts, recitals and more.
The Symphonic Band and Wind Symphony Concert, the play Mr. Burns, the Jazz Singers Concert and the Chamber Orchestra Concert were the first events to be cancelled when the campus was set to reopen on Monday, December 1.
Abigail Shinska, a third-year Music Education major, described the closure as causing lots of “panic and worry.” As a former campus resident, she can practice at home, but she worries about residents being unable to practice and prepare for Final Performance Exams.
“Classes not being in person is impacting learning greatly,” Shinska said “My professors have stated that they have no clue what they’re going to do. I’m sure this is not going to be a quick fix at all.”
The Wind Symphony performance is being rescheduled for next semester, but the Symphonic Band performance has been cancelled.
Even non-majors are being impacted. The Oakland Post’s own Ava Guest, a Graphic Design major and Music Technology minor, was disappointed to learn that her ensembles, the Golden Grizzly Jazz Singers and Gold Vibrations, had their performances cancelled.
“We had to cancel [the Jazz Singers] concert, which a lot of very, very talented singers spent a lot of time on,” Guest said. “It was pretty crushing.”
While the OU community was notified about the closure via email on November 12, some students have expressed that this could have been prevented.
“I feel like a problem big enough to close the entire school doesn’t just happen overnight, you know?” Guest said. “It’s got to have built up over negligence of some sort.”
OU’s SMTD is widely renowned throughout southeast Michigan, with the musical theatre program being ranked #3 in the state. Students and faculty from all over the world come here to learn and teach the performing arts, a critical creative field.
The cancellation of all these events that hundreds of students have spent all semester working on is devastating not only to everyone involved, but potential audiences that will never see all that hard work come to life.
Several performances have been moved to local churches, such as the Strings Studio Recital on December 5 at Northminster Presbyterian Church in Troy, MI. However, Final Performance Exams, which are required for every music major at the end of each semester, moving off campus could lead to further problems for students without reliable transportation.
Hopefully, next semester will not have the same unexpected curtain call.
