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Oberlin Conservatory ensembles return to New York’s Carnegie Hall 

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by Mike Telin

Many musicians can only dream of performing at Carnegie Hall. But next week students at the Oberlin Conservatory will have had the opportunity to perform at the famed venue not once, but twice in as many months.

On December 2, the Oberlin Orchestra and choral ensembles performed before the 77th General Assembly of the United Nations at a Carnegie Hall gala (left, photo by Chris Lee). The concert marked the beginning of a new partnership between Oberlin and the United Nations aimed at improving access to education and musical training for students all over the world.

On January 20, the Oberlin Orchestra, Oberlin College Choir, Oberlin Gospel Choir, and Musical Union, will return to Stern Auditorium to perform R. Nathaniel Dett’s 1932 oratorio, The Ordering of Moses. The 8:00 pm concert will also include Brahms’ Tragic Overture and Iván Enrique Rodríguez’s 2018 musical essay A Metaphor for Power. Tickets are available at carnegiehall.org.

If you can’t attend the New York concert, there will be a free send-off performance on Tuesday, January 17 at 7:30 pm in Finney Chapel on the Oberlin campus. Click here for the livestream. [Read more…]

Fire, Grace, and Ash at St. Malachi’s April 30

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by Mike Telin

“Music is something that throughout time has developed different flavors around the world,” violinist Edwin Huizinga said during a Sunday morning telephone conversation.

“There are no borders in music. And it’s amazing to me that even centuries ago, music was being shared in houses and pubs. Even then there were people traveling around. I always think of O’Carolan, who was this itinerant Irish harpist.

“He was blind and there are stories of him meeting up with Baroque musicians and composers, and sharing tunes with each other. So one of my passions in life is to share the fact that all music is similar in the way that it’s created. It comes from a rhythmical background, and a community background.” [Read more…]

Oberlin students add their personal touch to silent films at the Birenbaum (Feb. 15)

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by Stephanie Manning

What do you get when you combine the sounds of an organ, accordion, guitar, violin, and piano? A creative soundtrack to Les Vampires, of course.

This unusual ensemble made up one of three groups from “Performing Silent Film Scores from Historic Photoplay Music,” an Oberlin Conservatory Winter Term project led by Oberlin musicology professor Emily Laurance with the assistance of Rodney Sauer, director of the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Using resources from Sauer and his group, the students in the project compiled their own scores to a variety of silent film selections, culminating in a performance on Tuesday, February 15 as part of the inaugural Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium.

[Read more…]

Delving into the silent era:
Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium (first of two articles)

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by Mike Telin

When we think of film composers, the names Miklós Rózsa, John Williams, and Randy Newman immediately come to mind. But who were the important composers from the silent era?

Next week, a consortium of area arts organizations will come together to present a festival celebrating some of the major masterworks of silent cinema. To highlight the local connection, the inaugural Cleveland Silent Film Festival and Colloquium will focus on the music of Cleveland native and film music pioneer John Stepan Zamecnik.

The Festival kicks off on Sunday, February 13 at 3:00 pm at the Hermit Club, when violinist Isabel Trautwein and other members of The Cleveland Orchestra will join Rodney Sauer, music director of the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, in a concert of chamber works by Zamecnik and his mentor, Antonín Dvořák.

[Read more…]

Music, Sports, and Ancient Greece festival: Oberlin faculty recital (Oct. 10)

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by Jarrett Hoffman

To open the academic calendar in recent years, Oberlin Conservatory violin professor Sibbi Bernhardsson has organized interdisciplinary festivals centered around intriguing themes. That continued earlier this month with “Music, Sports, and the Enduring Influence of Ancient Greece,” a topic that was examined through a variety of events, musical and otherwise, over the course of two days. I caught the tail-end of the festival via live stream: the fourth and final faculty recital in Warner Concert Hall on the evening of October 10.

The program was fresh and eclectic, featuring several works by lesser-known composers, and spanning from traditional classical to contemporary music and jazz — not to mention poetry.

[Read more…]

Oberlin Conservatory goes Global (first of two articles) 

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by Mike Telin

Oberlin Conservatory has announced that its successes in implementing online education over the past year have given rise to entirely new opportunities for virtual learning developed for a worldwide audience. This summer marks the launch of Oberlin Conservatory Global, which begins with a series of courses designed for music students, teachers, and lifelong learners of all backgrounds.

“The intergenerational possibility of these classes is something we are promoting,” Joseph Lubben, executive director of OC Global and associate professor of music theory at Oberlin, said during a Zoom interview. “I think a number of institutions around the world understand that one part of classes like these is connecting to the local community. Another part is connecting to their alumni who also cross all generations. I’m very excited about all of that — but it’s new territory for Oberlin.” [Read more…]

Du Yun to be featured on YSU’s virtual Pipino Series February 24

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by Daniel Hathaway

What should viewers expect when they tune in to composer/performer/curator Du Yun’s master class and presentation on the Donald Pipino Performing Arts Series from Cliffe College at Youngstown State University on February 24?

Publicist Maggie Stapelton described this fascinating artist last October in a press release for one of New York’s Bang on a Can Marathons:

Du Yun has a secret life. Several secret lives, actually — she is not only a composer of socially activated opera but she is also a pop diva, an extreme improviser, a high energy new music storyteller. When she performs her own music on the Marathon, at least one of these personalities will be on display.

A native of Shanghai, China who took up the piano at the age of four, Du Yun studied composition with Randoph Coleman at the Oberlin Conservatory, going on after graduation to study at Harvard, where she earned a master’s and a doctorate in composition with Bernard Rands and Mario Davidovsky.

Northeast Ohio had its most recent look at Du Yun’s work when Oberlin Winter Term Opera gave five sold-out performances of her Pulitzer Prize-winning work Angel’s Bone in late January and early February of 2018. The opera, directed by Christopher Mirto, explores a dark topic with alluring words and music. [Read more…]

Black History Month at Oberlin:
a conversation with Jeff Scott
(first of two articles)

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by Mike Telin

“What a series of events — Oberlin really has pulled out all the stops,” associate professor of horn Jeff Scott said during a telephone conversation. “Even more than just showcasing the arts, there are so many talks and conversations happening — moments when you can just listen to perspectives about history and current events. It’s important to combine all of that because it’s more than just a month, it’s a long continuous conversation that this country needs to have.”

On Thursday, February 25 at 7:30 pm, Oberlin Black History Month: A Celebration of Black Artistry continues on Stage Left with a pre-recorded program hosted by Jeff Scott. The evening features three of his own compositions as well as works by Ulysses Kay and Duke Ellington. In addition to Scott, performers include Mark Dover (clarinet/keys), Drew Pattison (bassoon), James Howsmon (piano), the Verona Quartet, and the Oberlin Orchestra. The concert is free. Click here at start time.

Although this is his first year on the Oberlin faculty, Scott has spent a lot of time in Ohio as a member of the acclaimed Imani Winds. “We’ve been all over the state many times and during those twenty-some odd years, there are a few places we call our second home — and Akron’s Tuesday Musical is one of them. It’s great to have presenters who aren’t afraid to take risks with artists,” Scott said. [Read more…]

Oberlin Conservatory Honors Black History Month 

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by Mike Telin

Beginning this week, Oberlin Conservatory will honor Black History Month with a series of events titled To Be Young, Gifted, and Black. It begins on Thursday, February 4 at 7:30 pm with a series overview hosted by Chris Jenkins, the Conservatory’s associate dean for academic support and liaison to the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. The programs, which continue throughout the month, will be broadcast live on Oberlin Stage Left. A calendar of events can be found at the bottom of this article. 

Saturday, February 6 at 1:30 introduces “Decentering the Canon in the Conservatory.” Moderated by Chris Jenkins, the symposium is the result of conversations held by Conservatory faculty over the summer of 2020 — talks dedicated to responding to the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and other tragedies linked to systemic racism. The event is presented as part of the Richard Murphy Musicology Colloquium.

What is the canon and what does decentering the canon mean? “The panelists have written extensively on this topic,” Jenkins said during a recent interview. “Although they come at it from different points of view, they agree that the canon has centered esthetically and conceptually on the idea of whiteness and on works by white composers. Beethoven and Brahms have certainly been elevated by the quality of their work, but just as much because of the obsession with Germanic culture that characterized American classical music in the 20th century. The panelists are talking about music that is other, which has its roots in cultures of people of color, and has been systematically excluded for reasons other than quality.”

[Read more…]

Rhiannon Giddens: Oberlin Stage Left 

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by Staff

Rhiannon Giddens, a 2000 Oberlin Conservatory alumna who has forged a remarkable — and remarkably wide-ranging — career in music, returns to her Oberlin roots for an appearance on Oberlin Stage Left on Thursday, December 10 at 7:30 pm.

She will perform with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, with whom she created her most recent recording. Their set will span traditional Irish and Scottish tunes, as well as blues, bluegrass, gospel, and more. It will be preceded by a conversation between Giddens and music theory professor Jan Miyake that touches on the performer’s career and her longstanding commitment to social justice issues.

[Read more…]

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