For the second consecutive year, students from the Conservatory will perform at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., under the auspices of its prestigious Conservatory Project Series. Classical singers, early music performers, a horn instrumentalist, a chamber trio, and the Oberlin Jazz Septet will take the stage of the Terrace Theatre on Saturday, Feb. 18, at 6 p.m. for an hour of free performances. The Conservatory Project is an initiative of Performing Arts for Everyone.

Live audio and video of the performances will be streamed (and later archived) on the Kennedy Center's web site at www.kennedy-center.org.

The semi-annual event, which takes place in February and May, is designed to present Washington audiences with the best young musical artists in classical music, jazz, musical theater, and opera from the leading undergraduate and graduate conservatories, colleges, and universities in the United States.

"We are honored to be invited back to the Kennedy Center," says Andrea Kalyn, associate dean of the Conservatory. "Last year our students received accolades from the Washington Post for performances that affirmed why, as the Post wrote, Oberlin is a ‘national treasure.' This is another wonderful opportunity to demonstrate Oberlin's pursuit of excellence on a national level."

Oberlin's Saturday night performance is one of a series of seven nights of concerts, each presented by a different school. Five sets of musicians, each selected by different departments in the Conservatory, will represent Oberlin:

• Katherine Lerner '06, mezzo-soprano, Zoe Weiss '07, viola da gamba, and Benjamin Katz '08, harpsichord, will perform two works by Henry Purcell: Lord what is man? (one of the Divine Hymns), and Hark! how all things with one sound rejoice from his semi-opera The Fairy Queen. Lerner is a student of Professor of Singing Daune Mahy; Weiss studies with Associate Professor of Viola da Gamba and Cello Catharina Meints. Katz studies with Associate Professor of Harpsichord Webb Wiggins.

• Performance diploma candidate Jorge Mejia, horn, accompanied by Megan Glover '06 on piano, will perform the Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70, by Robert Schumann. Mejia studies with Professor of Horn Roland Pandolfi; Glover is a student of Associate Professor of Piano Alvin Chow.

• Soprano Megan Marie Hart BMus '05, MM '06, accompanied by pianist Megan Glover '06, will sing two songs by Franz Liszt: his setting of Heinrich Heine's famous poem Die Loreley, and of Friedrich von Schiller's Der Fischerknabe. Hart has studied with Professor of Singing Richard Miller and Associate Professor of Singing Lorraine Manz.

• The Prima Trio (Boris Allakhverdyan '08, clarinet, Farhad Hudiyev '08, violin, and Anastasia Dedik AD '06, piano), will perform Aram Khachaturian's Trio in G minor. Allakhverdyan is a student of Assistant Professor of Clarinet Richard Hawkins. Hudiyev studies with Professor of Violin Milan Vitek, and Dedik studies with Professor of Piano Sedmara Z. Rutstein.

• The Oberlin Jazz Septet (OJS) will perform works announced from the stage. The members of the OJS are: trombonist Allie Bosso '06, saxophonist Johnny Butler '06, guitarist Andrew Conklin '06, trumpeter Theodore Croker '07, drummer Charles Foldesh '07, pianist Sullivan Fortner '08, and double bassist Curtis Ostle '06. Professor of Jazz Studies and Double Bass Peter Dominguez is director of the OJS.