Leading French Virtuoso Daniel Roth Presents Recital On Oberlin’s Acclaimed Fisk Organ By Marci Janas ’91
			The inaugural season for Oberlin College’s acclaimed new pipe organ, the Fisk Opus 116, continues as Daniel Roth, widely hailed as one of the leading French organ virtuosos, travels from Paris to offer the first guest recital on the instrument. Roth, organiste titulaire at Saint-Sulpice, the famous Paris church where his predecessors were Charles-Marie Widor, Marcel Dupré and Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, will be in residence at Oberlin for two days. On Saturday, Nov. 3, at 8:00 P.M., Roth will perform in recital on the Fisk Opus 116 with a program that includes works by Couperin, Franck, Saint-Saëns, Reubke and Roth. On Sunday, Nov. 4, at 2:30 P.M., he will present a lecture and demonstration, "The French Tradition in Improvisation at the Organ." Both free, public events take place in Finney Chapel. The renowned C. B. Fisk firm of Gloucester, Mass., designed the Kay Africa Memorial Organ, the Opus 116, in the best of the late-Romantic tradition, based upon the symphonic style of the great French organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. The instrument was dedicated in September during a weekend of concerts that featured the Oberlin Orchestra and Oberlin organ professors Haskell Thomson and David Boe. In a review for The Plain Dealer, music critic Wilma Salisbury wrote: The 4,014 pipes sing like vibrant human voices supported by an unforced supply of breath. The individual stops modulate up the scale like a singer’s voice progressing from chest tones to head tones. The lowest notes provide a firm foundation. The highest ones sparkle. The distinctive divisions – three manuals and pedal – are so smoothly blended that the music flows from the pipes with extraordinary cohesiveness. Daniel Roth has received numerous honors for his accomplishments as a teacher, composer and recording artist. Of a recital in Washington, D.C., the Washington Star wrote: "A brilliant display of subtle registration and blazing virtuosity . . . . [he] revealed a commanding technique and an infallible ear for balances." Roth’s composition Aïn Karim, Fantaisie pour flüte et orgue (published by Schott) and dedicated to Karel Paukert, Curator of Musical Arts at The Cleveland Museum of Art and Michel Debost, Professor of Flute at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, was premiered at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1995. In 1999 the Institut de France, Académie des Beaux-Arts awarded Roth the Prix Florent Schmidt for his compositions. His recent compact disc recording of the Liszt Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H and the Fantasie and Fugue on "Ad nos" (Motette) has won a "diapason d’Or" from the French magazine Diapason. For more information, please call Oberlin’s Concert Production Office at 440-775-6933.
			Back to the Backstage Pass