by Mike Telin
To say that the music of Bernard Rands is tinged with Ravel and Debussy doesn’t tell the whole story. In reality, his music extends beyond that into a post-modern, impressionistic world. On the recently-released CD, Rands at Oberlin, the composer’s engaging musical voice is brought to life in stellar performances by Robert Walters of the Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra (2015) and by tenor Magnus Staveland of the Pulitzer prize-winning Canti del Sole (1983). [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Artists, arts organizations, and schools of music have found inventive ways of providing homebound audiences with a seemingly never-ending stream of performances during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The question is, what will make yours stand apart from the others?
Beginning on Tuesday, April 14 at 7:30 pm, the Oberlin Conservatory will debut Oberlin Stage Left, a new online series featuring faculty and students, as well as fascinating guests from throughout the musical world. The programs promise to be fun, informative, and “distinctly Oberlin.” New episodes will be broadcast on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons. The inaugural performance will feature harp professor Yolanda Kondonassis and the Oberlin Orchestra, Raphael Jiménez, conducting, in Ginastera’s Harp Concerto, preceded by a recently recorded interview with Kondonassis by Conservatory Dean William Quillen.
by Nicholas Jones
In the closing movements of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, the full brass section makes a spectacular entrance. In 1830, it must have seemed a sound that had never been heard before. Even in the jaded 21st century, it has a startling sonic complexity — at times as metallic as a locomotive’s firebox, and at others as smooth as the oiled bearings that drive the machine. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hautzinger
reprinted with permission from the Oberlin Conservatory
There was no Cleveland Orchestra when the Oberlin Conservatory of Music opened 150 years ago.
By the time the orchestra was founded in 1918 — with pivotal support from Oberlin’s John Long Severance ’85 — the conservatory was 53 years old and well into a phase of monumental growth. In 1919, the year-old orchestra performed for the first time in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel. It has returned to campus every year since — well over 200 performances and counting.
Ninety-six seasons later, as the conservatory celebrates its 150th anniversary, it honors these extensive ties to the Cleveland Orchestra with the commission of a work for English horn by composer Bernard Rands. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
When Robert Walters performs the world premiere of Bernard Rands’ Concerto for English Horn with The Cleveland Orchestra on Friday, November 27 in Severance Hall, it will bring to fruition a composer-performer collaboration whose roots go back more than two decades.
The 8:00 pm concert, under the direction of Lionel Bringuier, will also feature Claude Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. The program will be repeated on Saturday, November 28 at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, November 29 at 3:00 pm. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
When NEOSonicFest presents its fourth concert on Tuesday, March 24, at 7:30pm in Cleveland State University’s Waetjen Auditorium, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony (CCS) will pay tribute to its founder, the late Edwin London. The two-part musical evening will feature pieces by CCS’s 2015 Young and Emerging Composers competition winners, as well as a side-by-side performance with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra (CYO) of Bernard Rands’ London Serenade.
“We’re very excited about this concert,” said CCS’s conductor and Festival music director Steven Smith. “For the first time we will join forces with CYO for a side-by-side performance. This will be one of the highlights of the Festival, because Bernard wrote his London Serenade for the Chamber Symphony. We’ve played it several times over the years, and, I think there’s something poignant about bringing the piece back to life alongside a new generation of players.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
For the past nineteen seasons, Liza Grossman has been inspiring young musicians to become enthused about contemporary music. On Sunday evening, December 7, in Cleveland State University’s Waetjen Auditorium, the fruits of her tireless labor were fully realized in a glorious concert that began the Contemporary Youth Orchestra’s twentieth anniversary season. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“How could I possibly enter into our twentieth season without him being a major part of this concert?” Contemporary Youth Orchestra Music Director Liza Grossman exclaimed over the phone. The man Grossman is referring to is Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Bernard Rands. On Sunday, December 7 at 7:00 pm in Waetjen Auditorium at Cleveland State University, CYO will present a concert honoring the composer.
The program will include Rands’s London Serenade and Danza Petrificada as well as the world premiere of his Music for Liza and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra: Theme for CYO. The evening also includes the world premiere of Stefan Podell’s Concerto for Two Violas and Orchestra featuring violists Lynne Ramsey and Jeffrey Irvine, and Richard Hill and Chris Barber’s Concerto for Jazz Trombone and Orchestra with CYO concerto competition winner Rachel Waterbury as soloist.
by Daniel Hathaway
Having birthed such first-rate new music ensembles as eighth blackbird and ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble), the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble has been long overdue for it own regular presence in Cleveland. [Read more…]