By Raena Hunter Doty Arts & Features Editor The lights dim and the room quiets. On the stage, dozens of musicians clad in black take a breath as they ready themselves for the performance they've been preparing for months. All eyes are on them, and they're ready. The Metrowest Symphony Orchestra (MSO) has experienced this feeling many, many times in more than 50 years of serving the metrowest community, but on Nov. 17, it was different for one important reason - it was the first performance at Framingham State University. Bruce Karlin, president of the MSO and a violinist in the orchestra, said that one of the primary challenges the MSO has faced - especially since the COVID-19 pandemic - has been the lack of a consistent home. “The places that we’ve been or that have been open to us before were having difficulty with our requirement of rehearsal every Tuesday night and four concerts a year,” he said. “Among the places where we looked, Framingham State’s President Nancy Niemi was fabulous. She said, ‘Great idea. Let’s see if we can make this work.’ And in a couple broad brush strokes, she made it so enticing that we dropped our other plans,” he said. “It was her embrace that made us say, ‘Yeah, that’s where we’re going.’” Niemi said the collaboration was a natural fit for FSU because it integrates the university further in the community and provides more access to live music on campus because FSU’s music program is limited. “We have a wonderful music professor, Christian Gentry,” she said. “He’s a fantastic music professor, but we only have one, and a great university needs more music - just more musical opportunities. “I see it as part of a bigger picture of a community collaboration,” she added. “It was an opportunity for us to get live orchestral music on campus. We could collaborate with a community organization that needed a home.” Karlin said, “Not everyone can afford to go to the Boston Symphony Orchestra or to the International Artists Series on a regular basis. And yet, with a community orchestra, you can get a lot. He said many members of the MSO are people who would have ended up at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, had life gone a little differently. Jane Zanichkowsky, manager of the MSO, said the orchestra plans to use its home at FSU to truly integrate itself into the community. “The aim is to be a real collaboration,” she said. Alongside inviting students to attend performances or even sit in on rehearsals, she said the orchestra has been brainstorming ways to invite students into other parts of the organization. She suggested that students might be able to intern with the MSO to learn about a variety of different aspects of their functions - arts management, accounting, and fundraising, as examples. “We invite suggestions for ways to involve the school,” she added. “Everyone’s welcome to see what we’re doing and ask questions.” Niemi added these sorts of collaboration are exactly what makes FSU strong. “One of the great strengths of being a regional public university is that we are part of the community. I like to say we were born to serve the community. And unlike private universities and larger public universities which also exist to benefit the communities in which they serve, that’s our job,” she said. “Being part of the anchor of this part of our community allows us to have these long-term meaningful interactions,” she added. Karlin said students are encouraged to join even if they aren’t the best musicians in the world. “If you’ve got some proficiency, you will find that this is just marvelous fun,” he said. The burgeoning collaboration hasn’t been without challenges, though. Even though the space in the Dwight Performing Arts Center fits the MSO’s needs very well, the details of the collaboration still needed sorting. Zanichkowsky and Niemi both emphasized the role of Campus Events - particularly Autumn Sendzik, director, Susan Romani, administrative assistant, and Felix Mwangi, lead audiovisual technician. Niemi said they “are the three folks in Campus Events who have really shouldered the work making those rehearsals and the first concert happen.” Sendzik said she was enthusiastic about facilitating this collaboration, but there are always logistical issues involved with a new program like this. “One of the biggest challenges is the fact that we are an active campus,” she said. “Anytime that you’re looking to hold an event during an active semester, trying to find space and availability for something is happening, consistently is always a challenge.” Even so, Sendzik said it’s worth it. “The arts really bring people together. It gives that sense of community because everyone can enjoy the music,” she said. And for players, art can be so much more than just a way to bring people together - it can be an entire lifestyle. Such is the case for Constantine Finehouse, the Juilliard-trained pianist who played with the MSO on Nov. 17. Finehouse said he’s been playing piano since he was 13 years old and he met the conductor of the MSO, Max Hobart, when he was 17 and won a contest to play with the Wellesley Symphony. No matter how much he progresses in his career, he keeps coming back to play with Hobart. “I performed with Max when I was a nobody. I didn’t have any sort of career,” he said. “When you played with somebody when you were a kid, if they invite you to do something with them when you’re in your 40’s … of course you’re going to say yes.” Finehouse said classical music is his way of connecting with the world and the MSO’s presence at FSU may provide the same for students. “My own life is so tied to, obviously, playing classical music, but also listening to classical music, interacting with classical music,” he said. “I can’t envision my own life without classical music, because that’s my identity, that’s my profession, that’s my hobby, that’s my free time, that’s my everything.” He said the MSO’s collaboration with FSU can provide students an entry into that feeling. Finehouse said, “The way a musician feels is that if there's a beautiful hall - as there is at your school - and if there’s a piano, that piano begs to be played, that hall begs to be filled with beautiful music. “It just takes one musician to step up and fill it.”