by Stephanie Manning
The International Contemporary Ensemble hasn’t been back on the Warner Concert Hall stage in a number of years, but seeing them there somehow feels right. Founded at Oberlin Conservatory in 2001, the group has retained strong ties to the school, making their March 14 appearance notable as one of the few homecomings since the ensemble’s founding.
The Friday night concert featured eight artists from ICE’s roster, including four Oberlin alumni, two current faculty members, and twelve Conservatory students. Titled “Composing While Black: Volume I” and curated by the Ensemble’s artistic director George Lewis, the program featured music by people familiar to both the Oberlin community and Northeast Ohio at large.
Courtney Bryan, whose piece was first up, was once an Oberlin student herself. The Meliora Winds, a student wind quintet, took on Bryan’s Blooming, which began life as a commission by the Imani Winds. Each instrument seems to exist in its own peculiar world, before eventually bringing together the five players — flutist Nathanael Kim, oboist MacKenzie Kim, clarinetist Stephen Coffey, bassoonist Mia Tran, and horn player Maria Alexander — for some nicely balanced chords.
Students and professionals joined forces for Leila Adu-Gilmore’s Alyssum, which brought a Conservatory string quartet side by side with ICE harpist Nuiko Wadden. The harp proved a lovely addition to the ethereal textures of the work, with different groupings of the string players — violinists Gabe Roth and Matthildur Traustadóttir, violist Z Campbell, and cellist Daniel Knapp — echoing her left and right hands.
A microphone was occasionally passed around for commentary, but with no written program notes, this led to some unfortunate omissions. Allison Loggins-Hull’s The Pattern, for example, received no context, but the composer herself describes it as depicting the cyclical, tumultuous relationship between Black and white Americans. A bed of dark, accented piano chords from Erika Dohi underscored some complex percussion parts from students Sophia Stehlik and Yuuka Harada-Collier.
Ross Karre’s change in the percussion setup gave time for clarinetist Josh Rubin to talk about Olly Wilson’s Echoes, his solo piece with electronics. Wilson, who taught at Oberlin in the late ‘60s, laid the groundwork for what would become the TIMARA program and taught Oberlin’s first known course on African American music. Rubin demonstrated the quirky two-note fragment he described as the clarinet’s “hello” to the vast electronic soundscape.
That “hello” became impossible not to hear during the performance, which felt like a distinct conversation between Rubin and a variety of sustained tones and curious, questioning sounds. The track drifted between the left and right speakers, at one point using both to generate a pulsing subwoofer rumbling, making the hall feel like an expanding void with a clarinet at the center.
Wendell Logan’s Duo Exchanges made percussion the clarinet’s primary partner, still with some electronic amplification. This piece felt a little more sonically meandering, although it was exciting to watch Ross Karre work, flitting between all kinds of percussion instruments in a careful, choreographed dance.
Another addition came later in the form of colorful children’s toys, which chattered away at the beginning of Nicole Mitchell’s Building Stuff. Drums, piano, and a plucked bass (student Sophie Leah, who seamlessly coordinated with the ICE members) gave the piece a jazzy feel, as did improvisational solos from violinist Modney and flutist Elise Blatchford.
Yaz Lancaster’s intangible landscapes brought Modney, Blatchford, Rubin, and pianist Dohi together for some atmospheric introspection. The three standing musicians left the stage and paced down the aisles while playing, forming a spread-out triangle at the back of the hall. Curious heads in the audience turned to follow the action, absorbing the 360-degree sound experience.
Lancaster’s work is about feeling isolated in a once-familiar place — questioning whether home is a physical location or a collection of experiences. Oberlin may not be the same home to the International Contemporary Ensemble as it was 24 years ago, but there’s still a sense of belonging.
Published on ClevelandClassical.com March 25, 2025.
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