Instrumental Ensembles
Vassar Camerata
The Vassar Camerata, founded in 2004, is the college's only student-run Baroque ensemble and performs all types of early music from before 1800. Our conductors and officers are all active students at Vassar College. Though we don't use original instruments, we do rehearse and perform using eighteenth-century performance practices.
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Jazz Ensemble & Combos
The Vassar College Jazz Ensemble is a twenty-piece group of student musicians playing saxophones, trumpets, trombones, piano, double bass, guitar, and drums; vocalists are often featured as well. It performs literature ranging from the Big Band Era to jazz-rock fusion. The Jazz Combo program offers students the opportunity to play in smaller ensembles with a strong focus on jazz improvisation.
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The Mahagonny Ensemble
The Mahagonny Ensemble, founded in 2000 with a performance of the Kurt Weill operetta, Mahagonny Songspiel, is a completely student-run musical ensemble dedicated to promoting the creativity of instrumentalists, singers, and composers interested in performing and writing contemporary classical music. Our conductors and officers are all active students at Vassar College.
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Vassar College Orchestra
The Vassar College Orchestra is a full Symphony Orchestra of about sixty students. The group meets twice a week and gives two or three concerts per semester, performing master works of the symphonic repertoire. Participation is open to all students by audition regardless of their chosen majors.
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Wind Ensemble
The Vassar College Wind Ensemble is a fifty-member ensemble of student and community musicians. Founded in 2001, the Wind Ensemble plays two concerts per year, usually late in the fall and spring semesters, and features works of the wind and band repertoire.
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