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Preview: eighth blackbird returns to Oberlin for concert with Contemporary Music Ensemble

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by Mike Telin

eighth-blackbirdDeemed by the New York Times as “a hotbed of contemporary-classical players” and a “rural experimental haven,” the Oberlin Conservatory of Music has a history of cultivating innovation and entrepreneurship in its students. “Oberlin gives students the opportunity to experiment,” says Tim Weiss, director of Oberlin’s Contemporary Music Ensemble. “Undergraduates don’t really think about the limited number of ways one has to enter the music industry, they are only thinking about music as an art form. It’s very pure and they have no fears about entering the industry so I think that students are better equipped to be entrepreneurs because of their involvement in experimentation.”

On Friday, October 4 at 8:00 pm in Warner Concert Hall, Tim Weiss will lead the Contemporary Music Ensemble (CME) in a concert featuring guest artists and three-time Grammy-winning eighth blackbird, a group originally formed at Oberlin. The program includes music by composer-in-residence Benjamin Broening, Kaija Saariaho, Lisa Kaplan, Derek Bermel, and David Lang. The concert also features the premieres of pieces by Oberlin Technology in Music and Related Arts (T.I.M.A.R.A.) professors Tom Lopez and Peter Swendsen

Weiss, who reluctantly takes credit for forming eighth blackbird, says that he first put them together as a chamber group. [Read more…]

Review: Hawkeye Trio makes its debut in Oberlin concert (September 25)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Hawkeye-TrioThe Hawkeye Trio, a newly-hatched chamber ensemble made up of Oberlin Conservatory faculty members Michael Isaac Strauss, Richard Hawkins and James Howsmon, played its inaugural concert in Kulas Hall at the conservatory on Wednesday evening, September 25.

Three fine chamber musicians who play viola, clarinet and piano and want to concertize together need to do some research. That’s not a standard configuration of instruments. What repertory exists — like Mozart’s Kegelstatt Trio (not included on Wednesday’s program) — was usually written for domestic use by friends and family.

Case in point: Max Bruch’s Eight Pieces, op. 83, were composed for Bruch’s clarinetist son, Max. The Hawkeye elected to play two sets of four pieces each at the beginning and end of their program, leading off with Nos. 8, 6, 5 and 7 and finishing with the first four, in order. [Read more…]

Preview: Back-to-School Concerts feature faculty & visiting performers and a composition contest

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by Daniel Hathaway & Mike Telin

STRAUSS-MichaelEven before the Labor Day weekend, many of Northeast Ohio’s universities, colleges and conservatories were already up and running. Because students have only just moved in, concerts at the beginning of the term usually feature faculty recitals and performances by visiting ensembles, and there are several of them scheduled for the early days of September.

The first faculty event at the Oberlin Conservatory this fall will feature violist Michael Strauss (left) and his colleagues Alexa Still, flute, and pianists Monique Duphil and James Howsmon in Dmitri Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata, op. 147, Maurice Duruflé’s 1928 Prélude, Récitatif, et Variations for Flute, Viola, and Piano, Op. 3, and Paul Hindemith’s Viola Sonata, op. 11, no. 4, in a free concert in Kulas Recital Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory on Saturday, September 7 at 8.

“The staff discussed who would perform the first recital of the semester”, Strauss told us by phone. “I said, yeah, I can do that. I’m sure that many of the faculty would have been fine with the slot, it’s just that no one had made the move.”

Now in his second year as associate professor of viola and chamber music, Strauss admits that opening with Shostakovich’s last work is a little risky. “It’s quite a dark piece and it is a big test in keeping your wits about you. I started looking at music that would fit and I thought of going heavy and then lightening up.” [Read more…]

Preview: Cooper International Violin Competition begins this week at the Oberlin Conservatory

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by Mike Telin

Top Three

On Thursday of this week twenty-four aspiring violinists between the ages of thirteen and eighteen will arrive at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music all hoping to be one of only three finalists who will have the opportunity to perform a full concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra in Severance Hall on Friday, July 26.

In 2010, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music joined with the Cleveland Orchestra to offer the first Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition, an important new international competition for young musicians (the competition alternates annually between piano and violin). In addition to getting a chance to perform with The Cleveland Orchestra, contestants are also vying for cash prizes of $10,000 for the first-place winner, $6,000 for second place, and $3,000 for third place winner, fourth, fifth, and sixth prizes of $1,000, and the Audience Prize of $500.

Reading the resumes of these twenty-four young players, it’s difficult to call them young — perhaps in age but not in accomplishments. All have been highly successful in competitions in their home regions, nationally and internationally. All have performed in master classes with some of the world’s most noted teachers and performers. And, as a result, many perform regularly with orchestras as well as performing chamber music and solo recitals. [Read more…]

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

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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…]

Preview: Takács and DeMaine embark on complete Beethoven cello & piano cycle

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by Daniel Hathaway

TAKACS-DEMAINEOberlin piano professor Peter Takács was just finishing his decade-long project of recording all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas when he met Detroit Symphony principal cellist Robert DeMaine at the Charleston (SC) Chamber Festival. “We had one of those meetings of the minds which is not that common, but when it happens, it’s very, very nice. After I finished my solo sonata project I was trying to ponder what to do next. I could have rested and said, ‘OK, I’m done’, or I could have said, ‘Let’s do something completely different’. But I decided to stick with The Big Guy (Beethoven) and I thought about Robert because we had such a good time together.”

Takács emailed DeMaine, who was enthusiastic about preparing a series of paired recitals featuring Beethoven’s five cello sonatas and three sets of variations for cello and piano, all in two programs.

Takács has been there before, having performed the cycle three and a half years ago with Oberlin faculty cellist Darrett Adkins, but that pair of concerts took place on the same day. [Read more…]

News: Oberlin Dean to head San Francisco Conservatory

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STULL-DavidDavid H. Stull, who was appointed dean of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 2004 (after four years as associate dean) will become the next president of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in July. An Oberlin graduate, he worked at Lawrence University’s conservatory of music and at the Juilliard School before returning to his alma mater. Stull presided over many new initiatives at Oberlin including the new Kohl Building to house Jazz Studies, the Cooper International Competition, the Creativity & Leadership Project, Music in America, the creation of an Oberlin record label, national and international tours of the Oberlin Orchestra, and the Rubin Institute for Musical Criticism, helping generate some $40 million in donations for construction, project and program support. On behalf of Oberlin Conservatory, Stull accepted the National Medal of Arts from President Obama in 2010.

Preview: Tenor Alek Shrader returns to Oberlin on March 1, kicking off a series of area concerts by superb singers

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by Daniel Hathaway

Fresh fromSHRADER-Alek critically acclaimed performances at the Met and Hamburg Opera, tenor Alek Shrader will return to the Oberlin Conservatory, where he graduated in 2007, for a recital with pianist Keun-A Lee on Friday, March 1 at 8:00 pm in Warner Concert Hall. That performance coincidentally ushers in ten days’ worth of performances by esteemed singers: soprano Jane Eaglen sings Wagner with the Blue Water Chamber Orchestra on Saturday, March 2, baritones Thomas Hampson and Edwin Crossley-Mercer go head to head in separate recitals at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron and Baldwin Wallace in Berea on Sunday afternoon, March 3, and soprano Christine Brewer sings on the Mixon Masters Series at CIM on Thursday, March 7, followed by soprano Deborah Voigt on the Oberlin Artist Recital Series on Sunday, March 10.

We last spoke to Alek Shrader in 2009, when he sang Count Almaviva in Rossini’s Barber of Seville with the now-defunct Opera Cleveland (download that article here). “Since then, I’ve worked a lot in Europe”, Shrader told us by telephone, “in Munich and Bordeaux — the majority of my European gigs have been there — and I’ve also worked a few other places: in France in Lille and Toulouse, in England at Glyndebourne, in Germany in Hamburg. But the thing I really consider the high point has been my return to the United States when I sang in Chicago, in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and then in New York with the Met. I made my Met debut last season in The Tempest by Thomas Adès. I’ve hit most of the major houses, and that was always the goal for my career — to work in the States.” [Read more…]

Review: ‘The Turn of the Screw’ at Oberlin

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by Alison Kozol

Alison Kozol participated in the Oberlin Winter Term class in Digital Musical Journalism co-sponsored by ClevelandClassical.com and team-taught by CC correspondent and Oberlin English professor Nicholas Jones and CC staffers Mike Telin and Daniel Hathaway. Here, Ms. Kozol writes about the Thursday, February 3 opening performance of one of the two Winter Term operas, Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw.

A massive, beautiful paper-mache tree stood by itself in the corner of Finney Chapel’s stage last night as one of the few props used in Oberlin College’s production of The Turn of The Screw. The set design was sparse, but, like the tree, the cast and orchestra used minimalism to their advantage. Relying more on polished technique than ornamentation, The Turn of the Screw captivated its small audience by creating an eerie atmosphere that accurately captured the spirit of the story.

Such an eerie atmosphere is necessary for an opera like The Turn of the Screw, Benjamin Britten’s adaptation of Henry James’ novella of the same name. The story follows the unnamed Governess throughout her experience with the Bly mansion, a sprawling home teeming with ghosts, and Sara Casey, a fifth-year at Oberlin, did the character justice. Her transition from cheerful to weary to terrified set the tone for the entire performance, and her voice was flawless as it mimicked her tumultuous mood. Perhaps the most spell-binding moments, however, were when she was most flabbergasted by the supernatural around her and instead of singing, whimpered her disbelief. [Read more…]

Cooper International Piano Competition debuts at Oberlin this week

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by Daniel Hathaway

Oberlin Winners

An earlier group of winners

This Thursday afternoon, more than forty young pianists from seven countries will arrive in Oberlin to compete in a new and much enhanced version of the Oberlin International Piano Competition. Launched in 1995 by Oberlin Conservatory piano professor Robert Shannon, that competition for 13-18 year old pianists continued annually through 2008, when Warner Concert Hall was closed for renovations.

Reborn in 2010 as the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition, the contest will now alternate each year between pianists and violinists, with pianists up in 2010 and violinists in 2011. Cash prizes of more than $20,000 and Oberlin scholarships will be distributed among the winners, and the first prize winner will have the opportunity to perform with professional orchestras in Beijing and Shanghai. And in another big leap forward for its inaugural year, the Competition has made arrangements for the three finalists to play their concertos in Severance Hall with the Cleveland Orchestra under Jahja Ling.

We spoke with Robert Shannon by phone in his office at the Oberlin Conservatory to ask how this all came about.

“Before 1995, we had had a summer piano festival that had no age requirements and no focus at all. You’d come and you’d take some lessons, and you’d go to a lecture or two. We had lawyers from San Francisco who had never played the piano before! We wanted to upgrade this, and establish an age group of 13-18 — which is of course the group of people we either want to get excited about Oberlin or recruit from. There are many youth competitions now, but in 1995 that wasn’t really true. We thought we could combine having a competition with more educational programs so people would come here for a about a week and nobody would really lose because they could all learn something while they were here. That’s always been my dream”.
[Read more…]

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