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Threadgill’s Pathways with Zooid & Oberlin Ensemble at CMA (Jan. 11)

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by Nicholas Stevens

“The music as always speaks its own language.” In a program note for his new piece Pathways, Henry Threadgill names places and people who inspired him, yet declines to describe the music or the process behind it. Immersion in the 90-minute work feels like watching a non-narrative film in a familiar yet unknown language. What the committee for the Pulitzer Prize for Music recognized when they honored Threadgill in 2016 was the unique vitality of this invented language. In its world premiere outing on Friday, January 11, Pathways unfolded like a hive intelligence fleshing out its own original, complex definition of beauty.

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CMA’s Creative Fusion Series begins with Henry Threadgill, Zooid, & Oberlin CME

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by Daniel Hathaway

The Cleveland Foundation, which has brought more than eighty international artists to Cleveland since 2008 under the auspices of its Creative Fusion program, has partnered with the Cleveland Museum of Art to commission six new works to be premiered over the next two seasons.

Launching the series, composer and multi-instrumentalist Henry Threadgill will bring his Zooid ensemble to the Museum’s Performing Arts Series on Friday, January 11 at 7:30 pm in Gartner Auditorium to join Tim Weiss’s Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble in the world premiere of Threadgill’s Pathways, a partly improvisatory, partly pre-determined work.

Threadgill, now 74, won a Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for his recording In for a Penny, In for a Pound, which the awards jury described as a “highly original work, in which notated music and improvisation mesh in a sonic tapestry that seems the very expression of modern American life.”

Although he has been been characterized as a jazz musician, Threadgill objects to being hedged in by that branding. [Read more…]

Pianist Ursula Oppens with Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble (Apr. 6)

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by Mike Telin

Oppens-UrsulaWorks that combine electronic and live acoustic instruments have come a long way since Donald Erb’s Reconnaissance was premiered in 1967. The musical elements are integrated in Erb’s groundbreaking score, but the results come across like a first date. On Friday, April 6 in Warner Concert Hall, legendary pianist Ursula Oppens joined the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, under the direction of Timothy Weiss, in a mesmerizing performance of Jonathan Harvey’s Bird Concerto with Pianosong (2001). During the colorful 30-minute work, Harvey masterfully merges the technological with the acoustic, and here the result is a love affair. [Read more…]

Ursula Oppens to perform Harvey’s Bird Concerto with Oberlin CME

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by Mike Telin

Oppens-UrsulaThe music of birds has served as inspiration for composers since the beginning of time. In 2016, Classical-music.com, the official website of BBC Music Magazine, honored their 50,000 Twitter followers by naming the six best compositions inspired by birdsong. The list included Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, Respighi’s Gli uccelli (The Birds), Rautavaara’s Cantus Arcticus, Elgar’s Owls, and Messiaen’s Le merle noir (The blackbird). Also on that list is Jonathan Harvey’s Bird Concerto with Pianosong.

On Friday, April 6 at 8:00 pm in Warner Concert Hall, pianist Ursula Oppens will join the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble for a performance of Harvey’s colorful work which features the sounds of 40 Californian birds, including the indigo bunting, orchard oriole, and the golden crowned sparrow. Under the direction of Timothy Weiss, the program also includes Christopher Stark’s True North, Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint, Jesse Jones’ Snippet Variations, and Lee Hyla’s Polish Folk Songs. The concert will be streamed here. Oppens will also present a master class on Wednesday, April 4 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm in the Conservatory’s Bibbins Hall, room 224. Both events are free.  [Read more…]

CD Review — cellist Darrett Adkins in Myth & Tradition

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Adkins-Myth-and-Tradition-CD

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.

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Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble (Nov. 3)

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by Mike Telin

Chandler-TheoCRLike a great dinner menu, concert programs should provide listeners with a variety of tastes. On Friday, November 3 in Oberlin Conservatory’s Warner Concert Hall, Timothy Weiss and his top-notch Contemporary Music Ensemble deftly performed three works that never ran out of inventive musical ideas. [Read more…]

Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble at the Cleveland Museum of Art, April 9

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by Mike Telin

Koh-IyerDescribed by The New York Times as “a hotbed of contemporary-classical players” and a “rural experimental haven,” Oberlin College and Conservatory will exemplify those quotes when it plays host to a week-long residency by Oberlin alum violinist Jennifer Koh and composer, jazz pianist, and writer Vijay Iyer.

The week will culminate in a performance by the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble under the direction of Timothy Weiss on Sunday, April 9 at 2:00 pm. The concert, in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, will include Clint Needham’s Chamber Symphony as well as a workshop performance of Trouble, Vijay Iyer’s new concerto for violin and chamber orchestra. The program will also be presented in Oberlin’s Warner Concert Hall on Friday, April 7 at 8:00 pm.  [Read more…]

Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble at the Cleveland Museum of Art (Dec. 4)

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by Timothy Robson

Oberlin-CME-MastroianniThe Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble gave a rock-solid and virtuosic concert on Sunday afternoon, December 4, in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Director Timothy Weiss assembled a program of eclectic works by leading composers of our day, all of which received professional-level performances by the student ensemble. [Read more…]

Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble at Gartner Auditorium, CMA (Nov. 5)

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by Daniel Hathaway

hartkeAfter a year’s hiatus, Timothy Weiss and his Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble returned to Gartner Auditorium on Saturday afternoon, November 5, for the first of four performances this season. Literary texts and visual imagery gave the audience engaging handles on works by Oberlin faculty composers Elizabeth Ogonek and Stephen Hartke and Scottish composer James MacMillan. [Read more…]

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