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Oberlin Conservatory Faculty Chamber Music Series Offers a Treat for All Hallow's Eve: "Masks & the Dead," Sunday, October 31, 4 P.M., Finney Chapel
Story by Linda
Shockley
Photos by John Seyfried and Linda
Shockley
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THE PROGRAM: Dead Elvis George Sakakeeny, bassoon Vox Balaenae for three masked players (Voice
of the Whale) Kathleen Chastain, flute Le Bal Masque Lorraine Manz, mezzo soprano |
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All Hallow's Eve is the time for
slamming doors, ghoulish stories, and drafts that send
chills up the spine. It's also time for the Oberlin
Conservatory Faculty Chamber Music Series, Concert II:
"Masks & The
Dead," slated for Sunday, October 31, 4 p.m., in Finney
Chapel. The concert is free and open to the public. "Masks
& the Dead" will feature Dead Elvis by Michael
Daugherty, Vox Balaenae for three masked players (Voice of
the Whale) by George Crumb, and Le Bal Masque by Francis
Poulenc.
The Faculty Chamber Music Series, now in its sixth season, was founded to showcase faculty talent of the acclaimed Oberlin Conservatory of Music. The 1999-2000 series will feature performances by approximately 30 faculty members.
"The series creates opportunities for professors to perform together," says George Sakakeeny, associate professor of bassoon and director of the series. "The faculty spends its time in teaching lessons, in rehearsals with student ensembles, in public lectures, and in performances throughout the United States and abroad. But we have so few chances to perform together and many of us look forward to performing with people whose work we admire."
Dead Elvis was premiered in 1993 by
Sakakeeny with the Boston Musica Viva. It has become one of
his signature pieces. "Dead Elvis," Sakakeeny explains, "is
typical of Daugherty's works that blend pop culture themes
and visual aids with traditional classical music. The piece
is meant as a companion piece to Stravinsky's L'Histoire du
Soldat, with which it shares instrumentation. The bassoon
part represents 'The King' in the work and the score
suggests the bassoonist dress in full 1970's style Elvis
regalia.
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Performance notes for Vox Balaenae explain, "Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) was inspired by the singing of the humpback whale, a tape recording of which the composer heard in 1969. Each of the three performers should wear a black half-mask throughout the performance. The masks, by effacing a sense of human projection, are intended to give a symbolic representation of the powerful impersonal forces of nature (nature dehumanized). The three instruments are to be electronically amplified with a minimum of distortion."
Kathleen Chastain, teacher of flute and chamber music, will perform on flute. She says of the piece, "Voice of the Whale is a spectacular piece. I think it's one of the strongest works of our century."
Mezzo-soprano Lorraine Manz, associate professor of singing, will be featured in Poulenc's La Bal Masque, which was written in 1932 . She describes the piece as "a fun ride. The vocals and the purely instrumental movements are wonderful." Poulenc described it this way: "The color underlines what is bombastic, ridiculous, pitiable and terrifying. The overall inspiration for the work is Paris: the vulgar and suburban aspects. The poetry of Max Jacob is surrealistic in style. The singer must above all, believe in the words he is delivering."
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