Berkeley - The Grammy Award-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra - the only chamber orchestra in the world that consistently rehearses, performs and records without a conductor - will hold a one-day teaching residency for the University of California, Berkeley's Haas of Business. The main focus of the residency will be to demonstrate the "Orpheus Process" for Haas School MBA students, as the orchestra rehearses the first movement of Haydn's Symphony No. 63 in C Major in "real time." The orchestra will show its work process from preparations to final product.
The residency will take place on Thursday, Nov. 29, from 1 p.m. -5 p.m. at the International House Auditorium on the UC Berkeley campus. This event is sponsored by Morgan Stanley, a global financial services firm, which also sponsored an Orpheus residency at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, in June 2001.
Applications of the "Orpheus Process" to the business world are framed in the introduction and reinforced through a question-and-answer session and discussion period with the students and presenters. Making presentations will be Haas School Dean Laura D'Andrea Tyson; Harvey Seifter, executive director of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and author of Leadership Ensemble; Haas lecturer Terry Pearce; and David Pottruck, co-CEO of Charles Schwab.
Orpheus has garnered worldwide attention in the corporate sector for its unique approaches to creativity, innovation, and self-management.
The "Orpheus Process" is built on individual responsibility, shared leadership and workplace democracy, principles that are highly valued in today's progressive corporate environment. These principles have enabled the orchestra to unleash the talent, vision, creativity, and leadership potential of each member of the group. The results have produced 28 years of sustained excellence at the highest level of international accomplishment.
Central to the distinctive personality of Orpheus is its unusual process of sharing and rotating leadership roles. For every work, an elected committee of musicians selects a concertmaster and each instrumental section chooses a representative. These chosen representatives, called the "core group," are responsible for forming the initial concept of the piece and developing an overall interpretive approach to the music (e.g., tempi, phrasing, articulation, dynamics) before the entire orchestra comes together to rehearse.
The core also structures the rehearsal process for the entire orchestra, which provides clear leadership, while insuring that every member has a stake in the artistic outcome of every piece performed. In final rehearsals, all orchestra members participate in refining the interpretation and execution. Members also take turns listening from the auditorium for balance, blend, articulation, dynamic range and clarity of expression.
