Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra James Gaffigan Leads the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra at Severance Hall Friday, April 22

	The Oberlin Orchestra, under the baton of Steven Smith, performing at Severance Hall April 2004. Photo by Roger Mastroianni.

Audiences will sbe able to experience the musical expression of the "great affinity" between Russia and France when the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra performs at Cleveland's Severance Hall Friday, April 22, at 8 p.m. under the baton of James Gaffigan, assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra. He will lead the ensemble in Debussy's Prélude de l'après-midi d'un faune and La Mer as well as Stravinsky's Firebird Suite (the revised version of 1945), and the prelude to Mussorgsky's opera Khovantchina.

Tickets are $5 for the general public and free for those with an Oberlin College I.D.: students, faculty, staff, alumni, and parents. Seating is general admission. To order, please call the Severance Hall Box Office at 216-231-1111. Severance Hall is located at 11001 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio.

This concert is produced with the support of the Kulas Foundation and is dedicated to the distinguished voice professor Helen Hodam, who taught at Oberlin from 1963 to 1984 and whose students included mezzo soprano Denyce Graves '85 and sopranos Lisa Saffer '82 and Ann Panagulias '84.

Media sponsorship is provided by WCLV 104.9 FM, Cleveland's classical music radio station. WCLV will broadcast the concert live, with a simulcast on wclv.com, beginning at 8 p.m. thanks to the sponsorship of the Riverside Company, a leading private equity firm specializing in premier companies.

"The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is honored to provide this concert for the people of Cleveland and Northern Ohio, and to continue our relationship with The Cleveland Orchestra," says Dean of the Conservatory David Stull. "The opportunity to perform in one of the world's great music halls would not be possible without the generosity of the Kulas Foundation, and we are grateful for their support."

The Conservatory dean's office is making available free bus transportation, on a first-come, first-serve basis, for members of the Oberlin community who wish to attend the concert. Those wishing to ride the bus to Severance Hall must do the following:

1. Call the Severance Hall Box Office (216-231-1111) to reserve a ticket for the concert;
2. Reserve bus seats in advance by calling or e-mailing Nita Karpf at 440-775-8926 or nita.karpf@oberlin.edu;
3. Report to the Oberlin College Main Library at the Mudd Center parking lot on East College Street no later than 6:15 p.m. Buses will depart promptly at 6:30 p.m.

According to Peter Laki, program annotator for The Cleveland Orchestra and visiting associate professor of music history at Oberlin, there had been, since the end of the 19th century, "a great affinity between Russia and France."

The Oberlin program at Severance Hall, with works by Debussy, Stravinsky, and Mussorgsky, reflects that cultural mutuality; Debussy admired and had been influenced by the music of the 19th-century Russian masters, and Sergei Diaghilev's Paris-based Ballets Russes (Diaghilev had worked with Debussy), was the company with whom Stravinsky began a rich and prolific history, beginning with the music he wrote for Michel Fokine's ballet, The Firebird. Laki notes that by virtue of Stravinsky's innovative handling of rhythm and his masterful orchestration (Oberlin is performing his 1945 version; the original was written in 1910), The Firebird has remained Stravinsky's most popular work.

The appearance in Cleveland by the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra is one of several projects to emerge from the developing collaboration between The Cleveland Orchestra and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. This collaboration builds upon a core element of Oberlin's mission: professional training and contact with one of the world's great orchestras is seminal to a formal music education.

On the institutions' collaboration, Cleveland Orchestra Executive Director Gary Hanson says: "We are pleased to share our Severance Hall stage with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra, and we welcome these talented young people to Cleveland. The Cleveland Orchestra has long enjoyed an association with Oberlin College and because of Franz Welser-Möst's commitment to education, our relationship with this fine conservatory has been invigorated."

Welser-Möst, music director of The Cleveland Orchestra, took the Oberlin Orchestra through a rehearsal of Beethoven's Leonore Overture in 2003. Several students and recent graduates of the Conservatory's vocal studies program have performed with The Cleveland Orchestra the past several seasons, including Todd Boyce '05, Karen Jesse '04, Kathryn Leemhuis '05, Jean Lowe '04, Marie Masters '05, and Rebecca Ringle '02, who sang supporting roles last spring in Richard Strauss's Elektra.