by Jarrett Hoffman
The audience may have been more restrained than the appreciatively foot-stomping listeners who typically pack into Finney Chapel back home — but not by much. The crowd in New York’s Carnegie Hall gave two ensembles from Oberlin College and Conservatory a warm reception on January 19, with loud cheers and even some shoutouts to the players onstage. All well-deserved.
by Daniel Hathaway
Are the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel in Benjamin Britten’s chamber opera The Turn of the Screw real, or just the product of the overactive imagination of the young governess who chronicled this “curious story” in her own hand? Stage director Jonathon Field thinks they’re for real.
by Jeremy Reynolds
Continuing a collaboration with the Cleveland Museum of Art that began in 2014, Oberlin Conservatory’s Contemporary Music Ensemble (CME) will give the third of four performances this season on Sunday, February 26 at 2:00 pm in CMA’s Gartner Auditorium. While student vocalists have long performed with CME, the upcoming concert is the first time that a museum program by the Ensemble will be dedicated to vocal music.
The program, under the direction of Gregory Ristow, will include Harrison Birtwistle’s Entr’actes and Sappho Fragments, as well as Oberlin Professor of Composition Stephen Hartke’s Tituli.
Ristow is now in his second year as director of vocal ensembles at the Conservatory. An Oberlin alumnus, he earned his doctoral of musical arts in conducting from the Eastman School of Music.
Ristow also conducts the Interlochen Singers and has previously led the Houston Foundation for Modern Music, and the Voices chamber choir in Rochester.
We caught up with Ristow by phone recently to discuss the upcoming performance and learn more about the program. [Read more…]