Photo courtesy of Unsplash
This winter, Professor Jarek Lis chose to exclude Haydn’s Symphony no. 45, “Farewell Symphony,” from the program for Connecticut College Orchestra’s Spring concert. He was applying for a job within the music department that would make his role as interim orchestra director permanent, and he didn’t want to jinx his luck. On Thursday May 4th, the orchestra did not perform Haydn’s 45th, but they did perform a farewell symphony of sorts, thanking their beloved orchestra director for the time he has committed to the music department.
“Jarek took me in,” wrote Valentina Baehrle, a junior studying abroad in Berlin who has played in Lis’s ensemble and taken private lessons from him for two semesters. She also joined Prof. Lis in Italy last summer where he invited her to perform with the Trentino Music Festival. “[He] helped me grow as a musician in ways that I will eternally be grateful for…he gave me countless opportunities to grow and develop a stronger relationship with my instrument.”
Lis joined the music department in 2019 as an adjunct professor teaching violin and viola. When the previous orchestra director left in the Fall of 2021, Lis stepped up to become the interim director in the spring, bringing with him a unique set of skills, a challenging repertoire, and a wicked sense of humor. Since joining the orchestra, Lis has worked to expand the ensemble, bringing in community members, faculty, and new students.
Preparing for an orchestra concert this semester has been especially challenging. Like many other professors at Conn, Lis canceled rehearsals in solidarity with Student Voices for Equity (SVE) and the Fanning Occupations. Beyond that, the orchestra lost two weeks of rehearsals with Lis while the Music Department’s search committee looked at new candidates for his job. Despite these setbacks, Lis put together a great concert, including interesting pieces that allowed for all members of the ensemble to grow in their musicianship.
Thursday’s concert, entitled “Musica Omnia” (music is everything), pulled together classical pieces from many different eras. Lis also explained at the beginning of the program that he liked the word “Omnia” because of its femininity, and he wanted to include famous female composers that have historically been left out of classical conversations.
The program began with Hildegard von Bingen’s “O Virtus Sapientiae” featuring violin soloist Isabella Welch ‘26. The piece is one of the oldest written works of Western Art Music, written in the 12th century by a nun. This initially presented some structural challenges for the group, but with the combined leadership of Lis’s conducting and Welch’s stunning solo, the piece sounded beautiful.
“I’d never played a solo in my life,” Welch said. “It’s nice when someone sees potential in you, and you’re motivated to prove them right.” Welch credited Lis’s ability to safely push his students out of their comfort zone for her to rise to the occasion and play such a challenging piece so beautifully. “When he gave it to me at first, it really scared me, but it is also very liberating stylistically.”
The next piece was Vivaldi’s “Concerto for Four Violins” featuring violin soloists Jossie Bieler ‘25, Allison Quinn ‘26, David Ellison ‘24, and Prof. Lis. Evan Strouse ‘24 played the accompanying cello solo. “When you have a small group like this, everyone really matters,” Lis said. “I thought that it would be good to let people play solos because having more individual input over the sound of the group is just more rewarding.”
The third piece of the evening was the second movement of Florence Price’s “1st Quartet in G Major.” Price is now renowned as one of the greatest African American female composers in classical music, but her work was largely discredited during her lifetime because of her race and gender. “[The quartet] was also one of her pieces that wasn’t discovered until 2008. It almost never made it to the stage,” Lis said. “I also thought it was interesting to juxtapose with Hildegard von Bingen, another women composer whose experiences were much different living in the 12th century as opposed to the 20th.”
The final piece in the program was Haydn’s 60th symphony “Ill Distrato.” This six-movement symphony was a true testament of endurance for the musicians as it lasted over half an hour with no breaks. A highlight of the symphony was the final movement where the violins retuned their instruments on stage, mid piece. Lis looked out into the audience and made a disgusted face as all of the musicians laughed at the joke he had been making all semester. The piece included motifs from Haydn’s “Farewell Symphony,” and provided a sentimental goodbye to both the evening and the orchestra’s time with Prof. Lis as their director.
