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Swarthmore College Orchestra

Swarthmore College Orchestra

The Swarthmore College Orchestra, directed by Andrew Hauze '04, rehearses once a week for three hours in Lang Concert Hall and performs a full concert at the end of each semester.  Made up of more than sixty musicians, most SCO members are Swarthmore students, supplemented by members of the faculty, staff, community, and local professionals.


The Orchestra is dedicated to bringing great orchestral music to the Swarthmore campus. We perform a wide range of music spanning over three centuries up to the present day. (Please read our full repertoire vision statement here. You can also find a full list of our repertoire since 2006 here [pdf].)  

The Orchestra holds a student concerto competition each year: the winner of the competition performs a concerto movement with the orchestra at the spring concert.  We regularly welcome internationally renowned guest soloists and sometimes take field trips to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra.

 
2023-2024 Performance Dates
Friday, December 8, 2023 @ 8pm in Lang Concert Hall
Saturday, Apri 27, 2024 @ 8pm in Lang Concert Hall

Orchestra Auditions, Fall 2023

We welcome auditions for the Fall Semester of Orchestra! Any student who plays an orchestral instrument is welcome to audition.  This semester we will be playing Kevin Day's Blue Hour Skyline, Grace Williams's Penillion, and Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. 

To audition, please prepare any 3-4 minute excerpt from your repertoire. Play anything that you feel comfortable playing and that will give me a sense of your current level. Auditions are very low-key and friendly, so while it's very natural to be nervous about auditions, please know that we try to make auditions a very welcoming space. 

Auditions will be held in-person in Lang Music Building during the first week of classes.  You can sign up to audition here.

Orchestra can be taken for 0.5 credit or 0 credit. We rehearse on Monday nights in Lang Concert Hall from 7-10 pm (though often individual students are called for only a portion of that time). Please email ahauze1@swarthmore.edu with any questions.

 

Swarthmore College Orchestra, Spring 2017

Swarthmore College Orchestra at their Spring 2017 Concert. Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun" by Claude Debussy.

Swarthmore College Orchestra plays Rimsky-Korsakov

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Excerpts from the third movement of Scheherazade from the Spring 2015 SCO concert, conducted by Andrew Hauze '04.

Swarthmore College Orchestra, November 12, 2017

Swarthmore College Orchestra at their fall 2017 concert. Excerpt from Ethel Smyth's Overture to "The Wreckers."

David Kim soloist with orchestra

David Kim, the concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, performed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Swarthmore College Orchestra in November, 2017. Mr. Kim is one of our 2017-2018 Featured Artists.

Sounds of Cinema: Cinderella

The closing scene of Cinderella (1922, directed by Lotte Reiniger), performed on April 1, 2017. The score was written for this performance by Swarthmore Professor Thomas Whitman and featured members of the Swarthmore College Orchestra and Orchestra 2001, conducted by Andrew Hauze.