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Oberlin Artist Recital Series
presents Seraph Brass

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Sometimes you find an old scrap of paper with ideas that may or may not have been worth writing down. (“Make friends through multilevel marketing” did not turn out to be a winner.) But if the idea holds real weight, then putting it in ink can have the effect of setting something valuable in motion.

“I found an old journal where I had written down the thought that I wanted to form a touring brass quintet composed of all women musicians,” trumpeter Mary Elizabeth Bowden said during a recent interview. The idea marinated, and eventually, after her solo career had begun, the timing was right. “I felt like I had the tools, and also the time and energy, to really start this group.”

Now, Seraph Brass — with its mission to highlight female brass players and musicians from marginalized groups — is celebrating its tenth-anniversary season, which will take the group to Oberlin Conservatory next week for a three-day residency.

Bowden will be joined by fellow trumpeter Raquel Samayoa, hornist Rachel Velvikis, trombonist Elisabeth Shafer, and tubist Robyn Black for an itinerary that includes master classes, a lunch conversation, and finally a performance at Finney Chapel on Friday, October 13 at 7:30 pm as part of the Oberlin Artist Recital Series. Tickets are available here.

[Read more…]

Emerson Quartet launches Oberlin series with its own farewell concert (Sept. 22)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Photo: Abe Frato

Nearing the end of their distinguished 47-year run with only one change of personnel, the Emerson String Quartet bid adieu to its local fans in a nostalgic yet festive program that launched Oberlin’s Artist Recital Series on Friday, September 22 in Finney Chapel.

The Emersons (Philip Setzer and Eugene Drucker — who have always shared first violin duties — violist Lawrence Dutton, and cellist Paul Watkins — who replaced David Finckel for the past decade) gave the capacity audience parting gifts of Mendelssohn, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Beethoven. Plus an exquisite Bach chorale arrangement which should linger long in many listeners’ memories. [Read more…]

Emersons Revisit Oberlin on Farewell Tour: a conversation with violinist Philip Setzer

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 by Daniel Hathaway

After 47 years of touring, the Emerson String Quartet will be retiring as an ensemble this season, but not before revisiting the Oberlin Artist Recital Series during a farewell tour. (L-R: Philip Setzer, Eugene Drucker, Paul Watkins, Lawrence Dutton.)

On Friday, September 22 at 7:30 pm in Finney Chapel, the Emersons will play Felix Mendelssohn’s Quartet No. 2 in a, Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Drink the Wild Ayre, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Quartet No. 13 in B-flat and Große Fuge. Tickets can be purchased online.

I caught up with violinist and Cleveland native Philip Setzer — both of whose parents were violinists in The Cleveland Orchestra — via Zoom to talk about the group’s four and a half decades on the road and its plans for this season’s grand finale.

Daniel Hathaway: I’m really pleased to have the opportunity to chat with you at the end of your long, distinguished run with the Emerson, having had a small part in launching your career by presenting the quartet on the Gund Concert Series at Groton School way back in 1976. We were looking for an exciting new ensemble of young musicians who would connect well with high school age students, and you were all fresh out of Juilliard and making waves by alternating first and second violins.

Philip Setzer: And here we are 47 years later and those kids are all like 60, right? Crazy, isn’t it? We’ve got quite a farewell season lined up. [Read more…]

Oberlin Artist Recital Series: pianist Bruce Liu at Finney (Apr. 30)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Canadian pianist Xiaoyu Liu was 15 when he won second place in the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Piano Competition in 2012 with his performance of “Rach 2” at Severance Hall with Jahja Ling and The Cleveland Orchestra.

Having in the meantime won the top prize at the 18th Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 2021, Liu returned to Oberlin on April 30 — now as 26-year-old Bruce Liu — to play a solo recital on the Artist Recital Series in Finney Chapel.

There are two distinct topics to address in reporting on a solo performance. First, was the program a good fit for the performer and the occasion? Second, how well did the performer put the music across?

As might be expected, Liu gave his audience plenty of Chopin, choosing contrasting pieces from different categories of the Polish composer’s oeuvre — a rondo, a ballade, a set of variations, a sonata, and three “new” études, ending with Franz Liszt’s improvisatory musings on a notorious opera character already introduced in the variations set.

[Read more…]

ACRONYM breathes life into 17th-century hidden gems (Nov. 15)

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by Stephanie Manning

Whatever piece ACRONYM is playing, there’s a good chance you haven’t heard it before. While the ensemble focuses on Baroque music, it’s not from composers the casual listener might know — instead, the group hones in on less-familiar tunes from the 17th century. Some of these pieces haven’t been heard in the 400 years since they were composed, but ACRONYM makes them sound refreshingly contemporary, bringing them to life in stunning splendor.

The Oberlin Artist Recital Series proved the perfect occasion for the group’s visit to Northeast Ohio on November 15. ACRONYM was founded by Oberlin alumni, and their first public performance in 2014 was held in the same venue: Warner Concert Hall. They hadn’t been back since, making Tuesday’s concert a long-overdue homecoming.

Warner was a fitting choice not just symbolically, but also sonically. The combination of Baroque strings, theorbo, harpsichord, and organ created a nice blend and balance, allowing the opportunity for softer instruments to stand out. In Johann Rosenmüller’s Sonata à 5 in g, Doug Balliett’s violone pizzicatos resonated beautifully, and in Johann Heinrich Schmelzer’s Sonata in d, harpsichordist Elliot Figg became an equal player in the texture with his clever improvisations. The slight exception was Joshua Stauffer on theorbo — despite the instrument’s big physical presence on stage, he received little time in the spotlight. [Read more…]

N.E. Ohio-born Jupiter Quartet & ACRONYM return to CCMS & Oberlin Series November 15

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by Daniel Hathaway

The Intergalactic Scheduling Office that normally takes care of bringing planets and other heavenly bodies into conjunction without causing head-on collisions has messed up big time.

On Tuesday, November 15 at 7:30  pm, the Jupiter Quartet, formed in Northeast Ohio, will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a return to the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series at Plymouth Church where it last appeared in 2015. On the same date at the same hour, the Oberlin Artist Recital Series will bring ACRONYM, the Baroque string band formed by Oberlin Conservatory alumni, back to campus for the first time since its founding a decade ago in 2012.

What is a conflicted audience member to do? In order to encourage a bit more scientific solution than flipping a coin, ClevelandClassical.com has spoken with Jupiter Quartet cellist Daniel McDonough and ACRONYM cellist Kivie Cahn-Lipman, both founding members of their ensembles, to find out what’s in store at Plymouth Church and Warner Concert Hall on Tuesday.

I caught up with Daniel McDonough in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, who was walking his sons to a park where his 5-year-old would meet up with a friend and Daniel and his older son were going to kick a soccer ball around in celebration of the great fall weather. [Read more…]

Oberlin Artist Recital Series:
a conversation with “musical alchemist”
Francesco Turrisi

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by Mike Telin 

For nearly 150 years, Oberlin College and Conservatory’s Artist Recital Series has been a centerpiece in the musical offerings of Northeast Ohio. Now, after a two-year absence, the series returns with a noon performance in Finney Chapel on Tuesday, October 4 featuring musical trailblazer Rhiannon Giddens. The Grammy Award winner, MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, and Oberlin alum will be joined by multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi. Click here to find out more about Giddens. Tickets are available online.

Turrisi, himself an award-winning multi-instrumentalist, has been called a “musical alchemist” and a “musical polyglot.” In 1997 he left his native Italy to study jazz piano and early music at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, where he obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Since then he has released five albums as a leader and two as co-leader with the ensembles Tarab (which blends Irish and Mediterranean traditional music) and Zahr (which celebrates the connections between southern Italian traditional music and Arabic music).

Since Turrisi teamed up with Giddens in 2018, the duo has released two albums that combine Mediterranean music with music from the African diaspora in the Americas — There Is No Other (2019) and They’re Calling Me Home (2021), which won a Grammy for best folk album.

[Read more…]

Oberlin Artist Recital Series welcomes genre-mixing Russian Renaissance

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by Jarrett Hoffman

More and more, today’s musicians are shrugging off divisions of genre. Another trend in programming? Folk instruments from places far and wide are being welcomed into the world of mainstream classical music. Give those unfamiliar instruments a listen and be rewarded.

A perfect example of all that is the 2017 M-Prize-winning ensemble Russian Renaissance, which visits Finney Chapel as part of the Oberlin Artist Recital Series on Friday, February 28 at 7:30 pm. The quartet of Ivan Kuznetsov (balalaika), Anastasia Zakharova (domra and domra alto), Alexander Tarasov (button accordion), and Ivan Vinogradov (balalaika contrabasso), aims to “marry tradition and modernity, creating a fusion of styles and eras.”

That’s echoed in Friday’s program, which ranges from the Baroque and Romantic eras to folk, jazz, and tango, including music by J.S. Bach, Tchaikovsky, Richard Galliano, Piazzolla, Egberto Gismonti, Zequinha de Abreu, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Béla Fleck, Django Reinhardt, and the members of Russian Renaissance themselves. A full program and ticket information are available online. [Read more…]

Oberlin Artist Recital Series: Orchestra & Choir of the Age of Enlightenment (Nov. 22)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Britain’s Orchestra and Choir of the Age of Enlightenment brought smashing performances of well-known Baroque works to Oberlin’s Finney Chapel on Friday, November 22 as part of the college’s Artist Recital Series. Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Albinoni’s Oboe Concerto in d, and Vivaldi’s Gloria are titles you can routinely encounter on programs by avocational ensembles — they’re well within the capabilities of amateur musicians — but hearing them burnished to such a high gloss by 32 professional period instrumentalists and singers was revelatory. [Read more…]

Oberlin Artist Recital Series:
A conversation with Iestyn Davies 

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by Mike Telin

Singing has always been an important part of Iestyn Davies’ life. As a boy treble, he began singing in the choir of St John’s College, Cambridge. In his teens he discovered his falsetto, and became a countertenor at Wells Cathedral School, and after completing the British equivalent of high school, he entered St John’s College as a choral scholar, graduating with a degree in archaeology and anthropology. And as they say, the rest is history.

On Friday, November 22 at 7:30 pm in Finney Chapel, Iestyn Davies will join the Orchestra and Choir of the Age of Enlightenment in performances of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and Vivaldi’s Gloria under the direction of Jonathan Cohen. Presented as part of the Oberlin Artist Recital Series, the program also includes Albinoni’s Oboe Concerto No. 2 in d, Op. 9. Tickets are available online.

During a Skype interview, Davies said that like Vivaldi’s Gloria, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater has also been used in many films and advertisements. “People will recognize the opening movement. For that reason alone, I think the two pieces are a great combination.”

He noted that although they are religious pieces, like Bach’s B-minor Mass and his two Passions, they are more often performed in a concert situation rather than an ecclesiastical setting. [Read more…]

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