by Mike Telin
In February of 2009, when British Airways pilot Jim Trott was helping to store 30 past-their-prime brass instruments that were destined for the scrap yard, he had the idea of finding a home for them on his next flight to Uganda. Today Brass for Africa, a U.K.-based non-profit organization that uses music to empower and improve the lives of extremely disadvantaged young people in Uganda, supports more than 1,000 children and young people each week through brass music education.
Trombone professor Lee Allen and six of his Oberlin Conservatory students spent two weeks in Kampala last January immersing themselves in Brass for Africa programs. “It was a very interesting and humbling cultural experience for myself and for the students,” Allen said during a telephone conversation. On Sunday, May 6 at 4:30 pm at the Church of the Covenant in Cleveland’s University Circle, the Oberlin Trombone Choir under Allen’s direction will present a benefit concert for Brass for Africa. Donations, which will be used to purchase and transport used brass instruments to BFA outreach centers, may be made in cash at the door or online.
Allen said that he first became aware of BFA via his friend and fellow trombonist Taylor Hughey. [Read more…]
This Saturday evening’s concert by the Kent New Music Ensemble on April 28 at 7:30 pm in Ludwig Recital Hall will mark the end of an era at the University. Composer Frank Wiley, who founded the group in 1980 and now co-directs it with saxophonist Noa Even, is retiring from the KSU faculty at the end of the current academic year after nearly four decades — but not to a life of shuffleboard and crossword puzzles. When I asked him in a recent telephone conversation what he’d do first thing the morning after he retires, he didn’t have to think. “I’ll probably be composing,” he said.
For the West Shore Chorale, composer 
On Friday, April 27 at SPACES, the adventuresome new music ensemble 
Based on John Luther Long’s short story from 1898, Puccini’s opera