Oberlin plans a weekend of events celebrating 50th anniversary of Warner Concert Hall organ

November 14, 2024 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

Fifty years ago, in November 1974, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music inaugurated a monumental new organ in Warner Concert Hall. Built by Flentrop Orgelbouw in Zaandam, the Netherlands, the instrument returned to principles of Dutch and North German organ building during the golden age of the organ in the early and mid-18th century.

Oberin has planned a weekend of festivities that include a faculty recital by Jonathan Moyer and Christa Rakich on Friday at 7:30 (J.S. Bach’s German Organ Mass), a current student recital on Saturday at 11 am, and an alumni recital on Saturday at 4:30 pm. All events are free to attend and will also be live streamed.

Oberlin organ curator David Kazimir and organ professor Jonathan Moyer introduce and demonstrate the Warner Concert Hall instrument in this video.

Here are the weekend’s events:

Friday Faculty Recital
November 15: Friday evening at 7:30 pm
J.S. Bach’s Clavierübung III, performed by Jonathan W. Moyer and Christa Rakich on 2 organs and harpsichord. Click here for details.

Saturday Current Student Recital
November 16: Saturday morning at 11:00 am
Chase Olson, Evan de Jong, Daesean Lawson, Kingsley Wood, Nataly Pak, & Owen Metz play works by Bach, Reincken, Lübeck, and Max Reger. Click here for details.

Saturday Alumni Recital
November 16: Saturday afternoon at 4:30 pm
Alums Noel Warford, Jens Korndörfer, Keith Reas, Erik William Suter, Nancy Freitas Novelly, Peter Marshall, Justin Murphy-Mancini, & William Porter play works of Bach, Muffat, Buxtehude, de Grigny, John Redford, Johann Eberlin, and Ethel Smyth. Click here for details.

Published on ClevelandClassical.com November 14, 2024

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About Daniel Hathaway

Daniel Hathaway founded ClevelandClassical.com in September, 2008, after a thirty-one year tenure as music director of Cleveland’s Trinity Cathedral, where he founded the Wednesday Noon Brownbag Concert Series and Trinity Chamber Orchestra. A graduate of Harvard College and the Episcopal Divinity School, he also studied historical musicology at Princeton and Harvard Universities. Before coming to Cleveland in 1977, he served as head of humanities at the Sunset Hill School in Kansas City and as head of arts at Groton School in Massachusetts. In Cleveland, he has served on the music staff of Cleveland Opera, Great Lakes Theater Festival, and the faculty of Laurel School. As an organist, Hathaway has played recitals in the U.S., England, France, Germany, and Austria. He team-teaches Music Journalism at Oberlin College and Conservatory and is a member of the Music Critics Association of North America.

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Photo by Roger Mastroianni

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

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