Last semester, as the Brandeis administration announced it would close the University's flagship arts institution and threatened to eliminate smaller departments like Classics and African and Afro-American Studies, graduate students in the Music department conferred with their professors and administrators about how to bolster their department's reputation.Recognizing that, as Joanna Fuchs (GRAD) puts it, "We don't have a lot of money right now," the students proposed instituting Friday Music Breaks, a series of weekly colloquia and recitals free and open to the public. With no funding from the department or the University, students volunteered to lecture or perform at these events in the hopes of garnering campuswide interest in their program of study.

Fuchs, a musicologist with a focus on 20th-century music, is coordinating the program along with composer James Borchers (GRAD). The events take place every Friday at 3 p.m. in various rooms in Slosberg. There's a colloquium the first Friday of every month, kicking off Sept. 4 with a presentation by Erin Jerome (GRAD) about the operas of Joseph Haydn.

The rest of the Fridays are devoted to recitals, jam sessions and master classes by Brandeis students, professors and resident artists. Highlights include an Oct. 9 master class by resident artists Paul Rishell and Annie Raines on "The Story of the Recorded Blues" and an Oct. 23 improvisational jam session led by Boston-based Latin band Obbini Tumbao.

"My hope is that over time, all segments of the Brandeis community will begin to count on our Friday Breaks as a great way to ease into the weekend and take in some fabulous presentations all at once," wrote Music department chair Prof. Mary Ruth Ray in an e-mail to the Justice.

Shawna Kelley, the Music department's concert manager who has also planned many of the events, points out that "it can be a break in the day before the weekend starts or the only chance that you may get to see someone perform." In the past, she says, many students and professors have regretted missing weekend performances due to other obligations.

Students who offer up their time to lecture or play music gain unique training for a potential career as a music professor or performer, Fuchs says. She adds that attending Friday Music Breaks may help undergraduates in Music get a better sense of the graduate course of study in their field, preparing them for postbaccalaureate pursuits.

More than that, the concerts and discussions offer the chance for graduate students in the Music department to learn from each other in a preprofessional format, according to Borchers.

"Many of the grad students in Music were concerned that there was not enough of a 'community' or a sharing of each other's work amongst our colleagues, and it is our hope that this series will offer a chance for composers and musicologists to get to know each other," says Borchers. While composers generate original music, musicologists study performance and the social role of music throughout history. The two groups take some classes together, but otherwise do not have many opportunities to interact.

Graduate composition students already have a venue to perform their original works through the New Music Brandeis concert series, which Borchers co-directs with Michele Zaccagini (GRAD). Borchers believes Friday Music Breaks can extend that opportunity to the department as a whole. "We also hope that the series will provide a more public 'face' for the terrific work currently being done by the grad students in the Music department," he says.

Fuchs envisions music departments at other schools, including Harvard and Boston University, participating in the Friday Music Breaks, raising the profile of Brandeis' Music department within the Boston college scene at large. Groups from other schools have already been invited to participate either by attending or performing.

Fuchs describes Friday Music Breaks as the first student lecture series on campus. She sees the all-volunteer, interdisciplinary spirit of the program as a useful model in these dire economic times for the University. "I would like to see more interdisciplinary things, ... students getting involved in what else is going on," she said.