With Brian Mast taking over the Goshen College Symphony Orchestra just days before the Concerto-Aria concert, students in the GCSO are experiencing a wide range of emotions after Richard Brunson’s firing. The Record interviewed six orchestra students (and Mast) and asked them the following questions. These are their answers.
What was your reaction when you first heard about Brunson’s actions?“Initially it was numbness and then I felt very sad, a lot of grief … I felt for the students that were close to him, I felt for the professors, our whole music department, I felt for the community as a whole.”
– Julia Jun
“I was shocked but not surprised, because I felt very alone in the feeling that ‘this guy is off’ all semester. He makes offensive jokes and then laughs it off.”
– Lucca Kauffman
“I thought ‘oh, it must be a different Richard Brunson.’”
– Kate Roth and Víctor Vegas
“A lot of fear, because some of the stuff that was talked about in the articles was stuff that he was doing to me personally and also to some of my other friends.”
– Víctor Vegas
“I was shocked … I know he was a valued colleague in the music department; I knew students seemed to be responding to him well. I instantly thought of the students, and then the faculty.”
– Brian Mast
How are you feeling now?
“Last week was just a lot … There are still times when it just pops into my head: ‘oh, we’re out of an orchestra director. What are we going to do next?’”
– Miranda Pfahler
“Overall, we have a sense of hopefulness … I know this all happened last week, but it feels like it happened 20 years ago”
– Víctor Vegas
“At this point I feel like I have reached the anger stage, but at the same time, I am very prone to escapism and I’ve been trying to use choir rehearsal, orchestra rehearsals, voice lessons, cabaret rehearsals, specifically arts stuff and my typical forms of entertainment — video games, reading, watching videos — to just get my mind off of it.
– Leif Billings
“I’ve played violin my whole life, and I do care about orchestra, but I care about choir more at this point [because of Brunson].”
– Lucca Kauffman
What is the GCSO’s response?
“They’ve been fantastic. They welcomed me back generously … my number one philosophy is to build connection with the individuals in the orchestra.”
– Brian Mast
“We’ve handled it really well. We seem really determined to get it done … we have to work a little harder, but we’ve all been like yeah, it happened, we’re going to move on and get through this … and put on a good concert.”
– Kate Roth
“Dr. Brunson started great things like a pep band and students were talking about, ‘hey we don’t need a director for that, we can be student-led’ and seeing students step up, being in practice, was very encouraging.”
– Julia Jun
“It’s just going to be a process of grace and working together, healing together, because this definitely isn’t something you can deal with on your own. We need our communities.”
– Leif Billings
How was this all handled?
“I’m really happy with how everything turned out. The school reacted quickly and acted quickly and took action.”
– Víctor Vegas
“I think that everything was handled as well as it could have been; the faculty have all been super helpful -— they’re constantly checking in on all of us and being really supportive.”
– Kate Roth
“I’m curious about the hiring process now that this has happened, and that something this severe snuck through the cracks. But … the music faculty — and campus admin — responded extremely quickly … Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a better handling by anyone in higher-up positions.”
– Leif Billings
What are your hopes?
“I hope we can hire someone who loves a small community of students who love to do music, who values not just excellence but relationships … a person with integrity and honesty.”
– Julia Jun
“My hope is that even though we are out of an orchestra director as of currently, we continue to get our name out. We continue to perform for the people in the community because that’s what we love to do. We’re the orchestra; we’re the ones playing the music. We don’t need a conductor to be the orchestra that we are.”
– Miranda Pfahler
“I want to try and stay hopeful, but the trust that was broken — how do I trust someone that quickly again? … I hope that people can see that we do care about making music together and how this situation put our commitment to orchestra to the test. I’m hoping that people can see that music has power, and it has the ability to bring community together.”
– Víctor Vegas
“I hope that orchestra itself will get a lot bigger … ideally, it grows into something bigger and better than it is now.”
– Kate Roth
“If I can bring a little bit of stability, that’s all I want to do.”
– Brian Mast
“I would like to say that I’m generally hopeful for the future of the orchestra, but this isn’t a wound that’s going to heal quickly. It’s going to be something that we’re continually grappling with. I’m here for one more year and that’s it, but for the sophomores or freshmen that were here this year, they’re going to be in that orch room, probably having that on their minds for the next two to three years. So hopefully we can … be open for ourselves, to ourselves, to the rest of the members of the orchestra, members of the music faculty; we’ve got to be there for each other.”
– Leif Billings
Reporting by Daniel James and Sadie Brenneman; art by Jacob Dixon for The Record.
