Annual Summer Philharmonic Concert Brings Sweet Music to Campus

Each summer the MIT community enjoys one treat that is not part of any formal curriculum. For 17 years, MIT Professional Education has sponsored an MIT Summer Philharmonic Orchestra (MITSPO) concert.

In fact, MITSPO was launched in 1995 by George Ogata ’92 with the support of MIT Professional Education and the MIT Alumni Association. Ogata, then a recent graduate serving as the MIT Symphony Orchestra’s concert master, wanted to create an opportunity for area musicians to perform when many local orchestras are on break. Since MIT Professional Education offers short programs throughout the summer, sponsorship was a natural fit.

“We have many MIT alumni and professionals from the Cambridge area who come to our programs each year. And while only a few of them, their colleagues, or MIT faculty join MITSPO, all of the MIT and Cambridge community can enjoy the superb concert that maestro George Ogata arranges and conducts at Kresge auditorium every summer. We at MIT Professional Education are proud to sponsor the concert,” says Bhaskar Pant, executive director of MIT Professional Education.

Each year some 70-80 musicians are drawn to the project for the love of music and the camaraderie. Many volunteers return each year, and each spring Ogata also recruits new musicians. They hold six to eight rehearsals starting in late June and get great results.

“We put together a product that is really refined,” says Ogata, the symphony’s music director and conductor. “Something you would expect from a group who has worked together much longer. We are able to develop chemistry in just a month and a half.”

This past summer’s concert selection, the Manfred Symphony in B minor, Op. 58 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky that was presented on August 3 in Kresge Auditorium, was a challenging piece, says Ogata.

“The Manfred Symphony is a massive work—it’s over an hour long,” he says. “We had been working over the month of July to put it together and it all came together well. I was very proud of our orchestra—they did a very nice job.”

The role of a conductor is to set expectations and to know the score flawlessly, Ogata says. “If you don’t know the score, the musicians will fall apart. If there are any elements of uncertainty in my mind, that will translate into a hesitation in my baton gestures and that means the orchestra will falter.” That did not happen at the free concert in August. Ogata took the orchestra through careful rehearsals working first on the overall composition of the four-movement piece, then fine tuning at each rehearsal to develop difficult sections and then transitions.

Why did Ogata choose this particular piece of music? “Tchaikovsky himself said that it was his greatest symphonic achievement. Despite that, it is not performed often. When I was thinking what to program this summer, I took into account the fact that this is a fun piece that the orchestra would enjoy playing but it also would be a good piece to work on because it is neglected and the audience would appreciate hearing it.”

Although the mix of performers varies year to year, many musicians return. Perhaps 20 percent of the group are MIT faculty, staff, and students, and they are joined by performers from area orchestras including the Boston Philharmonic and the New England Philharmonic. Amanda Mok ‘11, who won the 2011 MIT Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition, says she has benefitted from working with this ensemble of musicians. “I have found my personal musical voice through performing on violin in MITSO and MITSPO,” Mok says.

For Ogata, this is a labor of love. During the academic year, he is conductor of the Longy Youth Chamber Orchestra. He maintains an active career as a project manager at an e-commerce software company and leads workshops on an iterative model of software development called Scrum. But each summer, he is drawn back to MIT and the summer concert.

Not only has MIT Professional Education been a stalwart supporter every year, the program is also very thoughtful in how they support it, he says. The program provided nicely printed programs and advertised in the Institute community, and each performer received a commemorative paperweight. Ogata says the musicians really appreciated that.

“I am very indebted to MIT Professional Education and to Bhaskar Pant and Clara Piloto [Director of Marketing] for being such passionate supporters of the summer concert,” Ogata says.