Gabrieli: National Brass Ensemble (Oberlin Music/50 Oak Music).
“No composer is more iconic of Venice’s fabled Renaissance splendor than Giovanni Gabrieli,” writes Steven Plank, Andrew E. Meldrum Professor of Musicology at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, in his informative liner notes that accompany the National Brass Ensemble’s stunningly beautiful CD entitled Gabrieli. A sonic feast, the recording transports listeners back in time to the Venetian Basilica of St. Mark’s.
Performed by members of the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, the CD pays homage to the famous 1968 Gabrieli recording featuring players from the orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, and Philadelphia. The players for this recording were brought together by Michael Sachs, principal trumpet of The Cleveland Orchestra. The story of the project’s genesis is well-documented in the liner notes. [Read more…]
Timothy Weiss and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble wrapped up their fall term on Wednesday, December 9 in Warner Concert Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory with impressive performances of works by Andrew Norman, Jesse Jones, Augusta Read Thomas, Elizabeth Ogonek, and Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez — five living composers, all born since 1964. 
There are a lot of things to consider when choosing an opera that will fit the voices of undergraduate singers. Oberlin Opera Theater director Jonathon Field had both practical and philosophical considerations in mind when he decided to produce Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, which opens for a four-performance run in Hall Auditorium on the Oberlin College campus on Wednesday, November 11.
Born in Romania, displaced by the Nazis, educated in Hungary, and finally settling first in Vienna then in Germany after the 1956 Hungarian revolution, György Ligeti spent a lot of his life on the move. Musically nomadic as well, he chased after a number of different compositional styles. Two of Ligeti’s pieces composed thirty years apart formed the backbone of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble’s arresting program in Gartner Auditorium of the Cleveland Museum of Art on Saturday afternoon, April 11. 
A gripping bassoon concerto from 1975, the world premiere of a cantata on a chilling subject, and a Buddist-inspired essay in instrumental colors written in 1997 provided Timothy Weiss and his Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble with plenty of opportunities to shine on Saturday afternoon, March 7, when they presented their fourth concert of the season in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. 
In his book, The Children’s Blizzard, author David Laskin chronicles the events of January 12, 1888. That morning the temperatures in the upper Midwest were unseasonably warm, so warm in fact that children walked to school without coats, hats or gloves. That afternoon one of the deadliest winter storms in U.S. history left thousands stranded as they attempted to make their way home. By the next morning, the storm had claimed more than 500 casualties, many of them school children.
As part of its 2014/15 performing arts series, the Cleveland Museum of Art is presenting five concerts by the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, directed by Timothy Weiss. The third, featuring works by Pierre Boulez, Harrison Birtwistle and Richard Wernick, took place on Saturday, December 13, in Gartner Auditorium. The audience enjoyed top-notch performances, showing not only technical prowess but also a strong sense of the musicality of each of these difficult works. 
This week the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts series will present three musically diverse concerts in Gartner Auditorium.