Tufts Music Futures symposium.

Back by popular demand: talking Tufts buildings!

Professor Shelemay and some other area music leaders were here last weekend for the Music Futures symposium, a celebration of our brand-new Granoff Music Center. Frankly, much of it was a waste of time. There were two panels — one made up of Tufts music faculty, and the other made up of the visitors — and both made lot of vague comments about “the promising future of music” without offering much in the way of concrete ideas or suggestions. Some of the best comments were from Maure Aronson, executive director of World Music, who took us to task for not integrating our music curriculum with performances despite being right next to Boston. Despite the occasional incisive comment, it was pretty clear that we really just wanted to show off our shiny new building and were not particularly interested in what anyone had to say. I suppose that’s fine; the faculty is proud of the new facility, and rightly so. I just hope there’s more opportunity for serious discussion in the future.