Aside from Sacramento State students sharing their commencement venue — Golden 1 Center — with the Sacramento Kings, one defining feature of the ceremonies has been their live music.
But this year, the university is changing its tune — literally.
While a student soloist will still sing the national anthem at graduation, they will be the only “live” music at the commencements. Instead, the student-run radio station, KSSU, will be providing accompaniment.
For the majority of commencements, there are two live music components: a student soloist chosen by the School of Music who sings the national anthem, and the Sacramento State Fine Arts Brass Ensemble, made up of professional musicians including some university alumni and professors. Both provide the soundtrack to a ceremony that, for many students, caps off their undergraduate experience.
A Reddit post earlier this week saw many commenters bemoaning the decision, noting that a proposal from the music department to instead have an ensemble of student musicians play in place of the Fine Arts Brass Ensemble was rebuffed.
The decision was made to save money, according to Stephen Blumberg, the director of the university’s Department of Music, and Sacramento State’s director of news and communications, Brian Blomster.
Blomster said the “cost of using the Fine Arts Brass Ensemble, $26,000, was part of the overall concern about containing Commencement costs.”
“It is a financially responsible move,” he said in an email to CapRadio.
While he added that a student ensemble would cost $16,000, Blomster said it was “too much to represent the significant cost savings that using music from KSSU provides.”
“Our costs have gone up dramatically over the past few years, and we are trying to avoid passing on those costs to students while still providing our students with a great commencement experience,” he wrote. “There will still be pomp and circumstance, a student soloist and plenty of great graduation traditions.”
For the 2023-24 fiscal year, the university is currently operating at an over $2 million deficit.
At the moment, there’s no forum through which students can provide input on the KSSU setlist. Blomster said the university trusts “KSSU’s expertise in selecting appropriate music for the Commencement ceremonies.”
And it’s not unprecedented that Sacramento State has asked KSSU to play at all the university’s commencement ceremonies: The radio station did so in spring 2022, when it provided music for the first in-person commencements since the pandemic’s start.
Orlando Rodriguez, the station’s promotions director, was a volunteer DJ at the time.
“It was just us as DJs and some other people associated with KSSU who volunteered to be emcees for that graduation,” he said. “There was this show prior to the actual commencement called a ‘grad jam pre-show.’ That would be where the music was played and where the emcees would then go into the seating area and try to engage with the audience for the graduates.”
But in spring of this year, said Rodriguez, KSSU only played three out of seven of the ceremonies. At those, KSSU was just playing music, without a pre-show, alongside the ensemble.
Blomster said the radio station "therefore does not represent an added expense this year" because of its involvement in the spring 2023 commencement ceremonies.
KSSU was notified about the university’s interest in having the station play music at the commencement in late October, Rodriguez said. He empathized with those expressing frustration on Reddit.
“I do understand, because the band brings a [specific] tone and gets the atmosphere set for the ceremony that’s going to follow,” he said. “But I definitely think it’s the case that we’re going to try our best to fill in that gap.”
Blumberg said he’s continuing to work with the school of music to provide auditions for a singer, and looks forward to a live ensemble potentially returning in the future.
“I hope that there’s [an] opportunity in the future that we could bring [it] back and with students instead of faculty and alumni,” he said. “I like that idea a lot. If the funding was there, I think the president would also like that.”
Many other elements of the ceremonies, including their location, are still not confirmed, according to the university’s commencement website. While Golden 1 Center is the planned venue, Blomster said, the university could move elsewhere depending on the Kings’ season results and subsequent potential playoff schedule, which similarly was the plan in spring of this year.
The 2024 commencements will occur during the weekend of May 17-19.
Editor’s note: CapRadio is licensed to Sacramento State, which is also an underwriter.
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