Oberlin Students to Perform April 25 at Kennedy Center

Eleven distinguished Oberlin Conservatory students, showcasing the incredible breadth of musicianship and expertise in the school’s student body, will travel to Washington, D.C., for a concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Millennium Stage at 6 p.m. Saturday, April 25.

The free program is part of the Kennedy Center’s Conservatory Project. Oberlin’s annual appearance on the series is an honor for participating students. Those performing on this year’s concert were selected from competitive auditions that took place during the fall semester. Nearly 60 individuals and ensembles vied for the opportunity to perform; from those auditions, a panel of conservatory faculty selected six of the most outstanding performances from across the conservatory’s divisions.

Oberlin’s historical performance division will be represented by Zoe Sorrell, flauto traverso, and Jeffrey Girton, Baroque violin, with continuo provided by Nicholas Loucks on Baroque cello and Jennifer McPherson on harpsichord. They will perform movements from Georg Phillipp Telemann’s Sixième Quatuor from the Nouveaux Quatuors.

Violinist Yuri Popowycz will perform excerpts from Earl Kim’s 12 Caprices for Solo Violin. The caprices were originally commissioned and premiered by Itzhak Perlman in December 1982.

Flutist Hannah Hammel and pianist Rachael Shapiro will perform Lowell Liebermann’s Sonata for Flute and Piano, Op. 23.

Composer Mitchell Hermann will present his own composition Alchemical, a piece written for electronics. Hermann studies electroacoustic composition at Oberlin.

Conservatory seniors Katherine Skayhan, soprano, and Marika Yasuda, piano, will perform movements from Antonín Dvořák’s Písně milostné, Op. 83.

To close the performance, pianist Yihui Liu will perform Franz Liszt’s monumental Transcendental Etude No. 4 in D Minor.

The Conservatory Project, an initiative under the umbrella of the Kennedy Center’s Performing Arts for Everyone, provides a public platform for the best musicians from American conservatories and introduces the next generation of performers to Washington, D.C., audiences. Oberlin has presented students on the Kennedy Center’s Conservatory Project series every year since its inception in 2004. All programs are live streamed at the Kennedy Center website.