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ClevelandClassical.com to cover Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute from the inside

by Daniel Hathaway

Oberlin BPI Viol ClassOn Sunday, your editor is going off to summer camp for two weeks.

In a recent conversation with Oberlin Conservatory baroque flute professor Michael Lynn, Mike Telin and I mused about covering the annual Baroque Performance Institute from a new perspective in this, its 46th season. Thus the idea was hatched of imbedding someone in the Institute to report on the experience from the perspective of a student. Lynn noted that this summer’s activities would especially favor the harpsichord, so guess who was put forward as the logical choice.

By the end of the day, members of the BPI faculty had enthusiastically signed off on the idea, so on June 18, I will join 123 other participants whose birth dates span a remarkable range from 1927 to 2003 for “Traveling Through the Baroque 1650-1750.”   [Read more…]

Oberlin’s Michael Lynn to demonstrate ten historical flutes in May 20 program

by Daniel Hathaway

Lynn with flutes“I always tell my students that performing on different instruments during the same recital is a bad idea,” Oberlin Baroque flute professor Michael Lynn said in a recent lunch interview. Casting aside his own advice, Lynn will host “A Passion for Innovation: A Lecture/Concert on Ten Rare Flutes, 1770-1900” on May 20 at 11:00 am in Kulas Recital Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory. With the assistance of several Oberlin colleagues, he’ll demonstrate just a few of the sixty flutes in his personal collection using period repertoire specially matched to the instruments.

The idea came to him when he acquired a crystal flute made by Claude Laurent in Paris in 1821. Among the most expensive flutes on the market at that time, these instruments were priced well out of the reach of mere musicians and were frequently given as gifts by the wealthy (among their owners were James Madison and Napoleon Bonaparte). Some 120 of these flutes still exist.

[Read more…]

Bach at Oberlin BPI: the B-minor Mass in Warner Concert Hall (July 1)

by Nicholas Jones

BPI-Mass-Concert-1Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor is, to say the least, a daunting work. It’s full of challenging vocal and instrumental parts that seem to venture into every key in the theory book. It’s composed of one complicated counterpoint after another. And like any sung mass, its musical integrity can seem at odds with the liturgical functions of the texts. And it’s long (over two hours). In its recent embodiment at Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute (BPI), all of these challenges seemed to disappear. [Read more…]

Nevermind, French baroque ensemble at Fairchild Chapel, Oberlin (Feb. 23)

by Daniel Hathaway

Nevermind-Oberlin-022316Nevermind, which describes itself as “un jeune ensemble de quatre musiciens et amis issus du Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris,” visited the Oberlin Conservatory of Music this week at the behest of baroque flute professor Michael Lynn to give master classes to historical performance students. The three-year-old ensemble of “musicians and friends” also delighted a capacity audience with a concert of French Baroque music in Fairchild Chapel early Tuesday evening. Those 90 minutes count as one of the most stimulating baroque music experiences these ears have ever witnessed. [Read more…]

French baroque quartet “Nevermind” to play at Oberlin’s Fairchild Chapel

by Mike Telin

Nevermind“Many times baroque ensembles have a leader with different musicians playing at each concert,” Anna Besson, flutist for the Paris-based baroque quartet Nevermind said during a Skype interview. “But from the beginning, because we were friends, we wanted to be a quartet. Just us four and no one else.”

On Tuesday, February 23 at 6:30 pm in Oberlin’s Fairchild Chapel (Bosworth Hall), Besson will be joined by her colleagues Louis Creac’h, violin, Robin Pharo, viola da gamba, and Jean Rondeau, harpsichord, in a concert featuring music by Georg Phillip Telemann, Jean-Baptiste Quentin, Louis-Gabriel Guillemain, and François Couperin. [Read more…]

Oberlin 19th-century Flute Extravaganza: a conversation with Michael Lynn

by Daniel Hathaway

Flute-ExtravaganzaOberlin’s historical flute professor Michael Lynn has devised a whole day of events celebrating the little-known world of 19th century French flute music. On Saturday, October 31, Lynn will team up with flute professor Alexa Still, fortepianist David Breitman, the Conservatory’s music history department, the Conservatory Library, and the Frederick R. Selch Center for Music History, to shine light on a neglected subject through lectures, a concert and an exhibition.

Lynn said in a telephone conversation that his project has been an adventure full of surprises. “I didn’t know that much about the repertoire, but I had the general feeling that there was a bunch of it out there. I’ve collected flutes from that era, especially Viennese instruments, but somehow I got pulled in by the French flutes. They’re simpler, more elegant instruments, and the more digging I did into the music written for them, the more interesting it became.” [Read more…]

Pompa-Baldi & Friscioni to present “Encore,” a Medici Foundation benefit in Akron on October 18

by Mike Telin

Pompa-Baldi--FriscioniMichael Lynn, Oberlin Conservatory Professor of Recorder and Baroque Flute, founded the Medici Charitable Foundation in 2012 following a liver transplant that restored him to health and allowed him to continue his career as a performing artist and teacher. The organization presents concerts by distinguished musicians to help raise funds for medical charities and research organizations. “Encore,” Medici’s next concert at Akron Civic Theatre on Saturday, October 18 at 7:30 pm, will benefit Lifebanc, a non-profit organization devoted to organ, eye and tissue recovery in Northeast Ohio. The performers will be the husband and wife piano team of Antonio Pompa-Baldi and Emanuela Friscioni. [Read more…]

Medici Charitable Foundation to sponsor benefit concert in Akron with Pompa-Baldi & Friscioni October 18

by Daniel Hathaway

Pompa-Baldi--FriscioniMichael Lynn, Oberlin Conservatory Professor of Recorder and Baroque Flute, founded the Medici Charitable Foundation in 2012 following a liver transplant that restored him to health and allowed him to continue his career as a performing artist and teacher.

The organization presents concerts by distinguished musicians to help raise funds for medical charities and research organizations. “Encore,” Medici’s next concert at Akron Civic Theatre on October 18 at 7:30 pm will benefit Lifebanc, a non-profit organization devoted to organ, eye and tissue recovery in Northeast Ohio. The performers will be the husband and wife piano team of Antonio Pompa-Baldi and Emanuela Friscioni. [Read more…]

Review: Michael Lynn and Friends in “Baroque Conversations” benefit at Cleveland Museum of Art (May 11)

by Daniel Hathaway

Lynn-Benefit

Only six months after receiving a liver transplant at Cleveland Clinic, Michael Lynn gathered a group of friends to present a benefit concert for the program that gave him a new life and restored his career as a performer on the recorder and baroque flute. “A Baroque Musical Conversation” drew a good-sized audience to Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Saturday evening, May 11 for masterful performances of concerted music by Telemann and Handel as well as cameo solo performances of works by Louis Couperin, Handel and Marais.

Lynn, who is professor of baroque flute and recorder and curator of musical instruments at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, was forced to give up performing four years ago due to his illness. His near-miraculous recovery was immediately evident in the opening selection, the Vivace from Telemann’s Concerto in D for two flutes, violin and cello, where he was joined by flutist Kathie Stewart, violinist Julie Andrijeski and cellist René Schiffer, with Jeannette Sorrell at the harpsichord and a backup orchestra of Miho Hashizumi and Rachel Iba, violins, Cynthia Black, viola, and Sue Yelanjian, contrabass. All the performers, who donated their services, have been longtime colleagues in professional period instrument ensembles in the region. [Read more…]

Preview: Michael Lynn and friends to hold benefit for Cleveland Clinic liver transplant program at Gartner Auditorium May 11

by Daniel Hathaway

LYNN-Michael“I call this Life 2.0 or ‘Michael is back!’” exclaimed Oberlin Conservatory Baroque Flute and Recorder Professor Michael Lynn during his miraculous recovery from debilitating liver disease following an organ transplant at the Cleveland Clinic earlier this year.

Lynn, who has taught at Oberlin for 36 years and served as its associate dean for technology and facilities and curator of musical instruments, received a diagnosis of liver disease eight years ago and was placed on a transplant waiting list. Because his “numbers” were so good at that point, his wait would turn out to be a long one. But after he developed encephalopathy and diabetes and had to take a medical leave from Oberlin, the situation soon became critical.

Last October 2nd he got “the call” and suddenly found himself the recipient of a donor liver. Things quickly went straight uphill for him. “The good stuff happened very quickly after the transplant”, he told us on his cell phone from his back yard in Oberlin. “The liver disease had the ‘side effect’ of sending toxins — mainly ammonia — to my brain and that caused all sorts of problems including not being able to perform for almost four years. What was amazing is that I could already tell in the hospital that I was going to be able to play again because my brain knew how and my coordination was coming back. When I got back home I was pretty beat up, but I immediately started noodling around on the recorder and that showed me I could play just fine. Since then I’ve played four concerts and it was totally easy.” [Read more…]

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