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Award-Winning Contemporary Music Ensemble to Perform with Violinist Jennifer Koh ’97 at New York City’s Miller Theatre
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The award-winning Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble (CME), under the direction of Gardner Professor of Music Timothy Weiss and featuring violinist Jennifer Koh ’97, will present an all-Ligeti program at New York City’s Miller Theatre on Saturday, November 12, at 8 p.m. The program will also be presented in Oberlin on Thursday, November 10, at 8 p.m. in Warner Concert Hall, and includes performances by the Oberlin Percussion Group, conducted by Professor of Percussion Michael Rosen, trumpeter Peter Evans '03, and mezzo-soprano Mary Nessinger. Tickets for the Miller Theatre concert are $20 and are available by calling the Miller Theatre box office at 212-854-7799. The Miller Theatre is located on the campus of Columbia University, 2960 Broadway (at 116th Street), in Manhattan. The Oberlin concert is free and open to the public. One of the world’s best-known living composers, György Ligeti is widely acknowledged as a musical pioneer of the late-20th century, forging his own musical alternative to a general stylistic crisis in the mid-century avant-garde. That alternative, based on texture and sound density, has become one of the major influences on contemporary music. The Oberlin and New York programs will include Ramifications; Mysteries of the Macabre from the opera Le Grand Macabre, with Evans as trumpet soloist; Sippal, Dobbal, Nádihegedüvel, with the Oberlin Percussion Group and Manz as soloist; and Violin Concerto with Koh as soloist. “I cannot wait to work with Tim Weiss and the CME,” says Koh. “And I believe that the Ligeti Concerto is one of the great masterpieces written in my lifetime. I am honored to be playing this piece.” This concert at the Miller Theatre is the CME’s third New York appearance within the last 18 months. In March 2004, Weiss led the ensemble in a program of composer Lewis Nielson’s works at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall (Nielson is Professor of Composition at Oberlin). Music critic Anthony Aibel, writing for the NewYork Concert Review, called those performances "unbelievably polished, superb ... [and] impeccable." His enthusiasm was unwavering when the CME performed at Merkin Hall last January: “One hopes [the CME] will continue performing annually in New York, a city that deserves great performances such as these.” Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble Winner of an award for adventurous programming by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) and the American Symphony Orchestra League (ASOL) in 2002, the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble is considered one of the premiere new music ensembles in higher education in the United States.The CME performs music of all styles and genres,with a repertoire that is as broad as the entirety of contemporary music. In addition to premiering works by student, faculty, and alumni composers, the CME has given first performances of new worksby prominent composers, including James Dillon's The Soadie Waste and an upcoming work by Jason Eckhart. The CME also offers students the chance to perform with such famous exponents of modern music as Steven Schick, Marilyn Nonken, and Ursula Oppens, among many others. In May 2005, the CME, under the baton of Timothy Weiss, performed two concerts of works by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, who was in residence at Oberlin. Timothy Weiss Timothy Weiss holds diplomas from the RoyalConservatory of Music in Brussels and degrees from Northwestern University and the University of Michigan. In his 13 years as music director of the CME, he has brought the ensemble to a level of professionalism in performance that rivals the finest new music groups in the United States. His repertoire in contemporary music is vast and fearless, and includes masterworks, very recent compositions, and an impressive number of premieres. A much sought-after guest conductor in the U.S., he is the chair of the division of conducting and ensembles at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he holds the Ruth Strickland Gardner chair in music. Jennifer Koh Violinist Jennifer Koh,a 1997 Oberlin graduate,won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the Concert Artists Guild Competition, and the Avery Fisher Career Grant, all in the 1994-1995 season. She has been heard with leading orchestras and conductors around the world, including the Chicago Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony (under Yakov Kreizberg), the National Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the New World Symphony, and many other leading ensembles. A prolific recitalist, Koh appears frequently at major music centers and festivals, including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Mostly Mozart, Marlboro, and Wolf Trap, and with Christoph Eschenbach at Ravinia and Schleswig-Holstein. She is heard annually at the Spoleto Featival in Italy, where she recorded Menotti’s Violin Concerto live in concert with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra, conducted by Richard Hickox. A committed educator, she has also won high praise for her innovative Music Messenger outreach program, which takes her to perform in classrooms throughout the country. After graduation from Oberlin, she worked extensively with Jaime Laredo at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and counts Felix Galimir, also of the Curtis Institute, as an important mentor. An active recording artist, she has recorded to date a program of chaconnes by Bach, Barth, and Reger for Cedille Records, and recordings of the violin concertos of Menotti (for Chandos), Nielsen (for Kontrapunkt), and Klami (for BIS). Her latest recording on the Cedille label — featuring fantasies by Schubert, Schumann, Schoenberg, and Ornette Coleman — has garnered wide critical praise. Koh is grateful to her private sponsor for the generous loan of the 1727 Ex Grumiaux Ex General DuPont Stradivari she uses in performance. The Oberlin Percussion Group The Oberlin Percussion Group [OPG], an ensemble of student percussion majors at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, is conducted by Professor of Percussion Michael Rosen and was founded by him in 1972. Premiering new works is a major objective of the group; they have commissioned more than 12 compositions by composers such as Ed Miller, Richard Hoffman, Dary John Mizelle, Randy Coleman, Evan Hause, and Michael Daugherty.The OPG has also performed the American premieres of several works by Japanese and European composers, including the first American performance of Pleides, Zythos, and IDEM by Iannis Xenakis, For o for o the hobby horse is forgot by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Prelude by Riccardo Malipiero, Con Luigi Dallapiccola by Luigi Nono, and Voûtes by Michaël Levinas. An extensive collection of fine exotic and conventional Western percussion instruments helps make such performances possible.The group rehearses a minimum of four hours per week, during which members develop skills in finding the right sound, apply techniques learned in lessons, and nurture a keen sense of ensemble playing while, at the same time, gain valuable performing experience. In 1984 the OPG won the Percussive Arts Percussion Ensemble Contest, performing Persephassa by Xenakis at the Percussive Arts Society Convention [PASIC] in Washington, D.C. The group performs outside of Oberlin often and played at the PASIC convention again in 1990 and 1996. The OPG has made several recordings for the Opus One, Lumina and CRI labels. Michael Rosen welcomes and encourages composers to send scores for performance in future concerts. Michael Rosen Michael Rosenis professor of percussion at the
Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he teaches, conducts the Oberlin
Percussion Group, and directs the Oberlin Percussion Institute.
He is as at home with symphonic literature as he is with contemporary
music, having served as principal percussionist with the Milwaukee
Symphony from 1966 to 1972. He has performed with the Cleveland
Orchestra and the Concertgebouw Orchestra as well as at the Grand
Teton Music Festival. Rosen has concertized and taught extensively
in Europe, at the Jeunesses Musicales Internationale Summerkurse
in Weikersheim, Germany, at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam,
Holland, and at the Arturo Toscanini Foundation in Parma, Italy. Other
engagements have included concerts and clinics at conservatories
and music courses in Italy, France, Holland, Germany, Switzerland,
Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Spain, Hong Kong and Beijing, China.
He maintains a continuing column in Percussive Notes Magazinedealing
with percussion terms in foreign languages and is editor of the Focus
on Performance section of the magazine. He was a member of
the Board of Directors of the PAS for many years and is a clinician
and endorser for the Zildjian Cymbal Company. He has served as
panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and has recorded
for the Bayerische Rundfunk, Opus One, Furious Artisans, Albany,
Lumina, and CRI labels. A native of Philadelphia, Rosen was a student
of Charles Owen and earned his master's of music degree
from the University of Illinois, where he studied with Jack McKenzie.
He has also studied with Cloyd Duff and Fred Hinger. Peter Evans '03 is a trumpeter, improviser, and composer living in New York City. Born in 1981, he grew up near Boston, and moved to New York after graduating from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a bachelor of music degree in classical trumpet performance. While at Oberlin, Evans was able to collaborate and perform with many musicians, including James Dillon, George Lewis, Francis Marie-Uitti, and Ursula Oppens. In New York, he works primarily in the fields of improvised and creative music, jazz, and contemporary classical music. Evans co-leads the New York Trumpet Ensemble with Mark Gould, plays in the improvisation groups Imaginary Folk and Effects on Man and Animals, and leads a maximalist jazz quartet with Mary Halvorson, Moppa Elliott, and Kevin Shea. Other collaborators have included Guillermo Brown, Perry Robinson, Taylor Ho Bynum, Brian Chase, Stefan Tcherepnin, David Taylor, Marcus Rojas, Butch Morris, and Dave Douglas. Recent projects have included American premieres of music by Brian Ferneyhough, the premiere of Composition 103 for 7Trumpets by Anthony Braxton, the 10th Annual Vision Festival, several performances at the 3rd Annual Festival of New Trumpet Music, a collaboration at the Bowery Ballroom with the math-metal band Hella, and performances with Moppa Eliott's terrorist bebop band Mostly Other People do the Killing. Peter also plays with contemporary music groups Alarm Will Sound, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and Ensemble 21. Peter has presented his music in various New York City venues, including dancespace at St. Mark's church, Tonic, and the Stone. Mary Nessinger Mezzo-soprano Mary Nessinger has been heard in concert and recital
throughout the United States and Europe. She is rapidly gaining
attention for her critically acclaimed performances of some of
this and the last century's most dynamic works as well as
for her astute interpretations of standard repertoire. Of recent
performances, the New York Times has praised her "remarkable
fluidity and beauty of tone," and described her interpretive
skills as "a tour de force of characterization;" the
New Yorker has heralded her "exacting musicianship
and quiet dignity [which] have made her a fixture of the New York
scene." Nessinger has been heard as a soloist in some of
this country's finest venues, including Carnegie, Alice Tully,
Avery Fisher, and Merkin halls, and the Metropolitan Museum of
Art; the Freer Gallery in Washington D.C.; and Jordan Hall and
the Gardner Museum in Boston. She has appeared internationally
at the Wigmore Hall in London, the Kammermusiksaal der Philharmonie
in Berlin, the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh, and the Glasgow
Royal Concert Hall. |
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