Conductor Robert Spano ’83, Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Professor of Conducting at the Conservatory, is music critic Justin Davidson’s guide through the methods and mysteries of conducting in Davidson’s article “Measure for Measure,” which appears in the August 21st issue of The New Yorker magazine. The considerable time that Davidson spent with Spano—observing recording sessions and rehearsals, talking shop over lunch, and analyzing great conductors on a DVD documentary (“’I feel like a retired football player on ESPN calling the plays,’ [Spano] joked.”)—was “both invigorating and exhausting,” Davidson writes.
Spano will take the Oberlin Conservatory Symphony Orchestra through its own paces in January, when he conducts the ensemble at Carnegie Hall. The program includes Jennifer Higdon’s blue cathedral, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, K. 503 (featuring the pianist Pedja Muzijevic as guest soloist), and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. A free performance of the concert takes place in Oberlin on Wednesday, January 24, 2007, at 8 p.m. in Finney Chapel. Tickets for the Carnegie Hall performance, on Friday, January 26, 2007, at 8 p.m., will soon be available by phoning the Carnegie Hall box office: 212-247-7800. Corporate sponsorship of this concert is provided by the DeWitt Stern Group. |
