Four musicians were selected from 19 finalists to win the Conservatory’s 2006 Concerto Competition, held in Finney Chapel on Oct. 7, 2006. Each student receives the honor of performing as soloist with the Oberlin Orchestra and Oberlin Chamber Orchestra during the 2006-2007 season.

The first concert to feature an Oberlin laureate, pianist Ji Yeon Shin ’07 of South Korea, takes place Friday, Nov. 10, 2006, at 8 p.m. A student of Associate Professor of Piano Haewon Song, Shin will perform Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43 with the Oberlin Orchestra. Tobias Picker’s Old and Lost Rivers and Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”) are also featured on the program.

The other winners are cellist Paul Dwyer ’07 from Hamburg, Germany, who studies with Assistant Professor of Cello Amir Eldan; soprano Jennifer Kelsey Jakob ‘07 from Kempten, Germany, a student of Professor of Singing Marlene Ralis Rosen; and clarinetist Jack Marquardt ‘07 of Lake Forest, Illinois, who studies with Associate Professor of Clarinet Richard Hawkins.

Marquardt will perform Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra on Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006, at 8 p.m. The chamber orchestra will also perform the overture and ballet music to Mozart’s Idomeneo and Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B minor (“Unfinished”).

Jakob will sing Benjamin Britten‘s Les illuminations with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra on Friday, March 2, 2007, at 8 p.m. The full orchestra version of Copland’s Appalachian Spring and John Adams’ Shaker Loops will round out the program.

Oberlin’s orchestral season concludes with Dwyer performing Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 107 by Shostakovich, with the Oberlin Orchestra on Wednesday, May 9, 2007, at 8 p.m. Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 (“Titan”) is also on the program.

All concerts are free and open to the public, and take place in Finney Chapel, with Bridget-Michaele Reischl, Music Director of the Oberlin Orchestras, conducting.