by Jeremy Reynolds
Paul Hindemith’s woodwind sonatas are gems, displaying the timbres of each instrument to great effect. Experiencing their individual personalities back-to-back on Convergent Winds: Music of Paul Hindemith is what makes the recently released Oberlin Music album so engaging. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
Myth & Tradition unfolds like a series of trials that our protagonist, cellist Darrett Adkins, must overcome. Alongside the impressive Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, directed by Timothy Weiss, Adkins conjures a mythical bird in the world premiere recording of Su Lian Tan’s five-movement Legends of Kintamani (2016). Next he navigates the brainy twists and turns of Philip Cashian’s Concerto for Cello and Strings (2012), another work written for Adkins.
by Jarrett Hoffman
Eight core musicians from three continents gather around the music of Billy Drewes in the latest release on the Oberlin Music label, Under One Sun. The album’s wide array of instruments, moods, and vocal styles makes for a fun and exploratory 70 minutes of jazz.
by Daniel Hathaway
Name four chamber works scored for oboe, viola, and piano. Then name four chamber works for oboe, viola, and piano that are based on poetry. Most of us would give up before getting to the second question. But the Jackson Trio — oboist Roger Roe, violist Michael Isaac Strauss, and pianist R. Kent Cook — have turned up pieces by August Klughardt, Felix Harold White, Josef Holbrooke, and Charles Martin Loeffler that fit the criteria for their fascinating album, Wordless Verses, released on the Oberlin Music Label. [Read more…]
by Jeremy Reynolds
The most striking thing about the album What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand to Record, devoted to the music of Mario Castelnuovo- Tedesco, is not the music itself, though the interpretations by tenor Salvatore Champagne and pianist Howard Lubin are quite lovely. Rather, it’s the presentation: the monumental research, painstakingly curated essays, and obvious care that went into producing the 64-page CD booklet. [Read more…]
by Jeremy Reynolds
Yolanda Kondonassis, harp, Gil Shaham, violin, Orli Shaham, piano, Jason Vieaux, guitar, and the Oberlin Orchestra (Oberlin Music).
In a newly released all-Ginastera album, a single element unifies four distinct compositions, four different instrumental groupings, and four different decades of Ginastera’s creative output: the gaucho chord. Gauchos are Argentine cultural figures, South American cowboys renowned for their skill with a guitar. Their namesake chord is a nontraditional harmonic construction: it comprises only perfect fourths instead of major and minor thirds, just like a strummed gaucho guitar. [Read more…]
by Neil McCalmont
The Oberlin Trio has been making music to widespread acclaim since its founding in 1982 by violinist Stephen Clapp, cellist Andor Toth Jr., and pianist Joseph Schwartz. Since 2008, the tradition has been carried on by another three distinguished faculty members of the Oberlin Conservatory: violinist David Bowlin, cellist Amir Eldan, and pianist Haewon Song. All are renowned pedagogues who have performed and recorded prolifically throughout their respective careers. [Read more…]