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Credo goes online for summer 2020

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by Mike Telin

When it became clear that moving forward with an in-person music festival on the Oberlin campus was out of the question, Credo wasted no time making the decision to take the 2020 Festival online. “We thought that if the projections were right, there would be portions of the population that would feel safer with this method,” Credo’s Artistic Director Peter Slowik said during a recent telephone interview. “I think we had announced Credo Online by March 15, and I believe we were the first music festival to do that.”

Beginning on June 22 and continuing through July 10, nearly 160 students will be logging in every day to participate in live events including master classes, private lessons, and chamber music excerpt classes. Students will also have access to a variety of recorded content such as curated concerts by the Arianna, Callisto, and Jasper String Quartets, and faculty lectures about technique, as well as music theory and history discussions. They can also engage with their fellow Festival participants during “hangout sessions.”

How did the Festival planners figure out how to make everything work smoothly and efficiently? “It’s funny, because you solve one problem only to discover that you’ve created another,” Slowik said. “Most music festivals are built on the premise that you get a bunch of people together, sort them out, and do a lot of interactive things. But when you have students from five time zones in the U.S. alone, not to mention Asia, and teachers in three time zones in the U.S., it gets a little interesting when you’re planning remote private lessons. It’s also important that everybody is together for a master class, so those need to be scheduled at a certain time of day.”

[Read more…]

Oberlin Stage Left: 
“Something for everyone”

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by Mike Telin 

Artists, arts organizations, and schools of music have found inventive ways of providing homebound audiences with a seemingly never-ending stream of performances during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The question is, what will make yours stand apart from the others? 

Beginning on Tuesday, April 14 at 7:30 pm, the Oberlin Conservatory will debut Oberlin Stage Left, a new online series featuring faculty and students, as well as fascinating guests from throughout the musical world. The programs promise to be fun, informative, and “distinctly Oberlin.” New episodes will be broadcast on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons. The inaugural performance will feature harp professor Yolanda Kondonassis and the Oberlin Orchestra, Raphael Jiménez, conducting, in Ginastera’s Harp Concerto, preceded by a recently recorded interview with Kondonassis by Conservatory Dean William Quillen.

[Read more…]

A Trio of Messiah Sings
will take place this week

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by Daniel Hathaway

Although Handel wrote his most famous oratorio for performance in Dublin at Eastertime of 1742, Messiah has become irrevocably associated with Christmas in the United States. And what would that season be without the opportunity to participate in do-it-yourself Messiah Sings? Here are three occasions when you can lift up your voices in the next week without auditions or rehearsals.

On Sunday, December 15 at 3:00 pm, the Master Singers Chorale will hold their first annual Sing at First Congregational Church in Akron. Edward Arthur Shure conducts, and Kent State student vocalists  Heather Morrison, soprano, Natalie Butchko, mezzo-soprano, Benjamin Hayes, tenor, and Charles Austin Piper, baritone, will take the solos. James Mismas will be at the organ, supplemented by a brass quartet. [Read more…]

Credo Music joint faculty/student concert in Oberlin (July 19)

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by Nicholas Stevens

Much of the magic of summer festivals remains forever hidden from the outside world. The masterclass that permanently rewires a student’s artistic circuitry, the rehearsal that converts a passing interest into a lifelong specialty, the practice-room collaboration that sows the seeds of a friendship or ensemble: these all elude public view. However, communities do have one point of access: concerts. If the recent Faculty Concert on the 2019 Credo Festival is any indication, then this Oberlin institution has maintained a steady rhythm over its twenty years in operation. [Read more…]

Credo Music celebrates
20 years in Oberlin

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by Daniel Hathaway

Among the several distinguished chamber music programs in Northeast Ohio that welcome young musicians each summer, Credo Music is unique for its parallel emphasis on providing professional-level music instruction to students ages 13-23, and on serving others — both through outreach concerts and in volunteering opportunities in food banks, park districts, churches, Habitat for Humanity, and homeless shelters.

Oberlin Conservatory viola professor Peter Slowik, who founded Credo in Chicago in 1999, said in a recent telephone conversation that this summer is a time to reflect on the last two decades. “Twenty years is a big milestone. Musical generations turn over every three, four, or five years. This is an opportunity to look back and see what we’ve done in the past, and to pivot toward where we’re going to be in the future.”

Slowik said that Credo has been “blessed from the beginning” to have virtually all of its faculty return every summer. “We were all in our early 40s at the beginning, and now we’re all in our 60s, so we have to think about refreshing ourselves. Because we’re probably not going to keep doing this when we’re in our 90s, this is an inflection point.” [Read more…]

Oberlin Conservatory to begin year with World War I Festival Sept. 8 & 9

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by Daniel Hathaway

“I’ve always loved music from the early 20th century, particularly during World War I, ” Oberlin violin professor Sibbi Bernhardsson said in a recent telephone conversation. “And I’m fascinated by the decade after the war, which is more varied than any ten-year period in the 19th century. You have the Second Viennese School, the Russian composers, things that are starting up in America, Modernism, and reactions to this and that. It’s a very rich time.”

Bernhardsson, who joined the Conservatory faculty last year after 17 seasons touring with the Pacifica Quartet, was seized by the idea of marking the 100th Anniversary of the cessation of hostilities, using Oberlin’s deep musical and scholarly resources to explore the music surrounding the Great War. “Looking at the number of great chamber pieces that were written during the era, not only are they all very different, some are clearly about the war while other composers were writing as though there was no war going on at all. This became a fascinating thing to me,” he said.

The violinist broached the idea of a festival with Oberlin musicology professor Charles McGuire early last spring only to discover that McGuire, who is in charge of Oberlin’s Murphy Colloquium, had already been talking with his colleagues about mounting a panel discussion about World War I music. “That seemed fortuitous,” McGuire said in a separate telephone conversation. “It’s always better to plan a scholarly panel if it’s surrounded by great music, and Sibbi’s very enthusiastic — a whirlwind when he sinks his teeth into something.” [Read more…]

Service Day: Credo Music students visit Grafton Correctional Facility

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by Delaney Meyers

On a recent visit to Grafton Correctional Facility, students from Credo Music Festival performed for and talked with some of the residents in the prison’s chapel, with an audience of about 50 and a backdrop of multiple green plants. This was part of Credo’s weekly service day, during which young musicians engage with the community in multiple ways — from picking up trash along the side of the highway, to performing at places that aren’t often filled with music. [Read more…]

Credo Chamber Music Festival in Oberlin: Arianna String Quartet & faculty concert

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by Delaney Meyers

Credo Music’s official summer concert season of over 12 performances will kick off on Tuesday, July 3 at 7:30 pm with a performance by the Arianna String Quartet at Oberlin Conservatory’s Kulas Recital Hall. Returning as festival faculty for the third time, the Quartet has programmed chamber music fan favorites as well as some less-often heard pieces.

The first piece will be Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 1. In a recent phone conversation, Arianna violist Joanna Mendoza said that this quartet is “not so well known.” She explained that the early composition was written “during a good time in Shostakovich’s life, when he’d just had his first baby, Maxim. It has a real freshness and brightness to it that his later works don’t.” She added that, out of his fifteen quartets, “it sounds least like the Shostakovich many listeners have come to expect.”

The Quartet will be also be performing a new work composed for them by jazz pianist, Webster University professor, and friend Kim Portnoy. This commission came about after first violinist John McGrosso heard Portnoy’s jazz trio perform a version of it at a house concert and thought, “What would this be like for string quartet?”

[Read more…]

Credo brings The Cleveland Orchestra, CIM & Oberlin Conservatory together for Hurricane Harvey Benefit September 8

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by Daniel Hathaway

HelpAfterHarvey_Sept8_SeveranceMembers of The Cleveland Orchestra will join Credo Music, as well as students from the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory for “Help After Harvey: an American Red Cross Benefit Concert” on Friday, September 8 at 7:00 pm in Severance Hall. Former Cleveland Orchestra Assistant Conductor and Oberlin graduate James Feddeck will conduct.

All seats are $20 ($10 for students), and all proceeds will benefit the American Red Cross for disaster relief services related to Hurricane Harvey. Reserve seats online or call the Severance Hall Box Office at 216.231.1111.

Executive Director Henry Peyrebrune said that the idea of a benefit concert originated in a Credo staff meeting a week ago. “We thought we should do something for the people of Houston. What if we organized a concert?” [Read more…]

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