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 Daniel Hathaway
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. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Musicians who are inclined to talk to the audience during concerts should take their lead from Timothy Weiss. On Saturday afternoon in Gartner Auditorium of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the director of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble gave cogent and dryly humorous introductions to music by Luke Bedford, Philip Cashian and Morton Feldman, and conducted a brief, impromptu interview with composer Sean Shepherd. [Read more…]