CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY

Executive Officers: Stephen Cleobury (SC), Simon Fairclough (SF), Liz Harvey (EH), Maggie Heywood (MH.), Craig Hudson (CH),,Dora Kemp (DK), Gordon Lawrence (GL), Alexander Marianski (AM), Richard Neill (RN), Jon Stainsby (JS), Beth Thompson (ET), Jonny Vaughn (JV),

Observers: Tagbo Ilozue (TI, Assistant Cond 04/05) Sam Hudson (SH Cond ZE 04/05) Courtney Lewis (CL, Cond C2 04/05), Max Pappenheim (MP ZE cond 04/05), George Corbett (GC, Cond C2 04/05),

Apologies: John Barber (JB), Harry Blake (HB), Nick Collon (NC), Ashley Grote (AG), Sam Hudson (SH), Courtney Lewis (CL), Claire Pike (CP), Vicky Skinner (VS), Robin Ticciati (RT)

2. The Chairman suggested that since we had a limited time for this meeting and the agenda was rather lengthy that we took only the urgent items today and fixed a date for the continuation of the meeting next week when all other matters would be addressed.

In all or most cases the programme plans have been quite widely discussed by sub-committees in consultation with the membership. There is still some fine-tuning to be done and this committee has delegated final responsibility to the Programme planning sub-committee, under the chairmanship of the Conductor. As the programmes are finalised they will be circulated to the committee. ACTION MH / SC & pp sub-comm

Student composition: It was agreed that it would be desirable to offer student composers an opportunity to compose a piece for CUMS I - perhaps a percussion concerto to precede Tippett's A Child of out Time in May Week, using the same orchestration as Tippett. There might also be a chance for a short piece for woodwind & brass to precede Holst Hymn of Jesus and Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony in the Michaelmas term. An advertisement for such a competition is being drafted and needs to be put publicised very soon if the short piece for Michaelmas is to be written in time. ACTION RB

Singers It was agreed that if we are to use choral scholars as soloists on a regular basis it would be fairer in future to have a competition as we do for our concerto soloists.

The Conductor has had an invitation from Specialised Travel to take an orchestra to China for 10 days: 26 Dec '04 - 6 Jan'05. Accommodation and meals would be provided, but the players would have to find the air fare, currently £590. The CUMS 2 tour committee are anxious that if this goes ahead they may lose people from their proposed trip to Budapest in September. It was agreed that we need to agree a policy towards planning tours in the future. ACTION MH (for another agenda)

CUMS II Tour to Budapest is not really viable at the moment with the number of people who have actually paid their deposits - 35 have paid but they want to take 46. After some discussion a vote was taken not to support the tour on the grounds that it would be irresponsible to underwrite the loss.

6. Letter from the Faculty: The chairman asked the Conductor to respond to a letter offering CUMS I & II preferential treatment in the use of facilities at West Road in future, but not the Chorus or the Zephyr Ensemble. The Conductor thought that it ought to be up to the CUMS Committee to decide how to deploy our ensembles within what is offered by the Faculty. Excluding the chorus entirely is ill-judged and takes no account of how we want to encourage more students across all disciplines to participate. It was unfortunate that only students reading music were asked their opinion since that lost sight of the idea of obtaining central funding for music-making across the University as is the case with both sport and drama. After some further discussion it was agreed that the Chairman would draft a letter to the Chairman of the Faculty Board and bring it to the next meeting for approval before sending it. ACTION TB

Publicity Secretary's report: ET summarised the current systems for advertising our concerts, pointing out the savings that had already been made in poster design and printing by using Dora's expertise in the former and her connections with a cheaper printer. It has been suggested that a questionnaire at this term's concerts would be helpful in finding out where the bulk of audiences come from and whether or not they have any connection with anyone performing. It was agreed that we need to cast our net as widely as possible to attract students and citizens as well as friends and family. ET is going to see if a term-card is a useful addition to the concert flyers and Concert Calendar. It was suggested that the Concert Calendar and term-card could be based on the same design.

There was some discussion on poster design, and the value of having an e-mail list of people who have said that they want to know about our concerts. After considerable discussion it was agreed that we would offer tickets to TCS and Varsity for reviewers to attend our concerts. It was further agreed that a preview about the whole year of CUMS concerts in an early edition of both papers would be a good idea, and that we should perhaps produce a more detailed publicity document to attract new members in October. It was agreed that the web-site is a very important part of our publicity, especially in August when A-level results are out and freshers start to log on. SC suggested that a one-off consultation with Gillian Perkins would be worth arranging to tap into her encyclopaedic knowledge of concert promotion in Cambridge. ACTION CG / ET / SF

MH introduced the report by describing the process by which the job-descriptions had evolved, and pointing out that not all sub-committees had the same range of officers. The following posts were discussed:

Conductor, Convenor, Assistant Librarian, Assistant Programme Editor, Assistant Publicity Officer, Assistant Recruitment Officer, Assistant Registrar, Assistant Secretary, Assistant Social Secretary, Stage Manager, Junior Treasurer, Tour Representative, Assistant Web-master.

Some adjustments were made to the job-descriptions, which will now be incorporated into the document, and circulated to the convenors. It was felt that in some cases it would be possible for several jobs to be done by one person, since they take up only a small amount of time each week. There was some discussion on the relationship between the sub-committees and the main committee. For clarification it was agreed that the sub-committees have no power to make policy decisions, they are there to administer their ensemble.

In view of the recent request from the Librarian for someone to take over from him as soon as possible, it was agreed that the assistant librarians could in future be asked to take full responsibility for the music once it had been delivered to the orchestra at the first rehearsal of term. This would relieve the Librarian of the burden of work after each concert of checking in the parts and chasing up the missing ones. ACTION MH

Chorus membership SF pointed out that rehearsals on Thursdays at 7.30pm makes it quite difficult for members of Chapel Choirs to consider joining CUMS. It was agreed that this was a bigger question than we had time for this evening but that it should be brought to the next meeting after some consultation with the conductor, the sub-committee and the membership. ACTION ET/SC

CUMS 2 Tour to Budapest : AM reported that since the last meeting the CUMS 2 Tour committee had worked hard to persuade more people to fill the spaces and pay their deposits, and they had managed not to run out of time with the tour company and they would like the support of the committee to go ahead with 39 having paid and 7 who say that they will! There was some discussion on the risk, the cost to CUMS if it should fail, and whether or not the tour company would be likely to agree to a smaller group. After a fifty-fifty vote with a number of abstensions, and more discussion, the Chairman cast his vote in favour of the tour. If it fails the cost to CUMS will be £2100 - the cost of seven people on the trip.

Letter to the Faculty Board The Chairman presented his draft letter in response to the one we had received from the Faculty Board. A few suggestions were made and he agreed to re-draft it and show it to SC again before sending it. The main point we wanted to make was that CUMS provides an opportunity for music-making to a high standard across the University and the city and was unique in that respect.

Rehearsal space for the Zephyr Ensemble was discussed and it was agreed that if they were to rehearse in the foyer each week they would feel like the poor relation and it would prevent CUMS I from arranging sectionals on a regular basis as they have done recently with ww/brass in the foyer, strings in the CH. TB suggested a room in Clare Colony which would be suitable, and free, but there would be the problem of percussion. This will also be a problem if they have to seek other venues for their concerts.

CUMS I Tour invitation: JB has been approached by an organisation in Spain which runs the International Festival of Young Orchestras each year. CUMS I has been invited to be the resident symphony orchestra in April 2006, 5^t^h - 10^t^h. They would provide accommodation and meals and would arrange three or four concerts in different towns/cities. We would pay the travelling costs. It was agreed that JS should respond positively to this invitation. ACTION JS

The date of the next meeting was set for Friday 11 June 1pm - 2pm, but since then the chairman has asked if we could make it Thursday 10June instead, from 12 - 1pm? It will be in the Music Faculty, if a room is available. (No lunch!)