My First and Last Concert at Oakland University

I am shocked and appalled. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed a few sniping comments I made about Oakland University this weekend. Long story short, Corey and I drove over an hour to the north suburbs of Detroit for a concert this weekend. We were met with shoddy directions, a campus that doesn't label street names, a box office phone that is not staffed during performances, and worst of all, music students that don't know how to shut up during a concert.

I was so upset by my experience that I wrote the following e-mail to the chair of the School of Music:

Dear Dr. -------,

I am writing to you because I strongly believe that the behavior I witnessed during a concert at your school needs to be brought to your attention.

Last night, my husband and I drove up from Ann Arbor to attend Alarm Will Sound. The performance was wonderful, but the only word I have for the audience behavior is appalling. Several groups of students in the audience were talking at full volume and noisily shuffling papers throughout the entire concert. I and other audience members had to ask these groups to be quiet several times during the performance.

Being a former music student myself, I understand that it is sometimes necessary to take notes during a concert, but the level of noise and distraction present at this concert was inexcusably rude and unacceptable. From some of the conversations that I overheard (during the second movement of John Adams' Son of Chamber Symphony, by the way) I could tell that these were actually students of the music school, which I find deeply troubling.

I wanted to make you aware of how poorly your school was represented last night. This level of rudeness and unprofessionalism from a group of young musicians is bewildering. I hope that this is the first and last time you have received a letter like this. I hope that last night's display was a one-time fluke, and I hope that someone apologized to the ensemble.

I am not in any way seeking a refund of my tickets or a personal apology. I simply thought, that as head of the department, that you would want to know that this is going on. I certainly would.

Regards,

Lauren B. Cunningham

I respect the privacy of the chair enough to not reprint her response here, but I can say that after reading it, I am not at all surprised by the students' behavior. After a flippant apology, she proceeded to tell me this sort of disturbance can happen anywhere, and the house has no control over such situations. She attended the concert herself, and could not hear any talking from where she was sitting, so "it must have been more localized" to me "than I realized." The school apparently "invited students from many schools in the area" and "there is no way of knowing where the students I heard were from." Even if they were her students, "undergrads don't always make the best decisions." (I couldn't make this up.)

Also, if I ever encounter this situation again, she advised that I simply move to a different seat. She finished the e-mail expressing her hope that I will return to Oakland University for future concerts. I can assure you, I wont.

As both and musician and a PR professional, I am outraged. The behavior of the students in the audience was rude, but this response is unacceptable. The chair blamed every other entity she could think of, including myself, for the problem, rather than simply taking responsibility, apologizing and assuring it wouldn't happen again. No educator or administrator I've ever met would dream of insulting a patron like this. And let me tell you, if my undergrad received and e-mail like this, we students would have gotten an earful (via a stern departmental e-mail).

This person is responsible for training future musicians and educators, which really troubles me. Doesn't this school teach the taking of responsibility for one's actions? After what I've seen, I sincerely doubt it.