NYU is an enormous school with nearly 28,000 undergraduates.  However, based on the microscopic size of the audience at our concerts tonight and last week, it might as well have been nonexistent.

I doubt that this is what any of us expected when we chose to attend NYU.  Everyone who is a part of a Steinhardt music program has worked so hard to get to where they are today.  For the students, it was years of dedication, practice, and stressful auditions.  For our professors, it was building their own careers as respected NYC performers and teachers.  Therefore, I believe I speak for all of us when I say that we deserve better.  We deserve the opportunity to showcase our hard work to everyone in the NYU community, even (and especially) those who don't have a direct connection to MPAP.

Since the beginning of the semester, my colleagues and I have been vigorously advertising our performances through the use of our own Instagram accounts.  However, this isn't effective, since many of us have private accounts and/or have followers who aren't part of the NYU community.  There's a simple solution to this: Steinhardt needs to put more effort into advertising our performances, especially the smaller ones.  We need more than a lazy story post on an Instagram account that only the performers follow.  We need other forms of advertising, such as emails, signs, and social media posts, that can get the attention of those who wouldn't have known about the performances in the first place.  

Our amazing director of brass studies, Professor DuMaine, has reached out to many people with these concerns, but has not received a response.  Therefore, it's time for us to take the next step by creating this petition.  Please consider supporting us and our concerts by signing it - we'd all really appreciate it!  Let's get Steinhardt's and Dean Knott's attention and get an audience in our balcony!