Oberlin Conservatory Backstage Pass

Four International Students Are Winners of the Oberlin Concerto Competition
By Marci Janas '91
December 11, 2007

Winners of the 2007 Oberlin Concerto Competition (L-R): Rachel Desoer, Jeffrey Hill, Boris Allakhverdyan, and Nina Zhou.
Photo by Roger Mastroianni

Four international students have won the 2007 Oberlin Concerto Competition, which was held on October 13, 2007, in Finney Chapel. They have the honor of performing as soloist with Oberlin’s large orchestral ensembles. Three are from Canada — cellist Rachel Desoer of Ontario, baritone Jeffrey Hill of British Columbia, and pianist Nina Zhou of Winnipeg—and clarinetist Boris Allakhverdyan is from Baku, Azerbaijan. They were selected from 20 finalists at the competition, which lasted more than six hours.

The first concert to feature an Oberlin laureate takes place Wednesday, December 12, 2007, at 8 p.m. in Finney Chapel. Jeffrey Hill will present a series of songs by Franz Schubert with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra, under the baton of Bridget-Michaele Reischl, Music Director of the Oberlin orchestras. The program includes Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Hill studies with Assistant Professor of Voice Kendra Colton.

On Friday, February 29, 2008, at 8 p.m. in Finney Chapel, Boris Allakhverdyan will perform Carl Nielsen’s Concerto for Clarinet, Op. 57 with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ms. Reischl. Béla Bartók’s Divertimento and Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin are also on the program. Allakhverdyan studies with Associate Professor of Clarinet Richard Hawkins.

Rachel Desoer will perform Dimitri Shostakovich’s Concerto No. 1 for Cello, Op. 107 with the Oberlin Orchestra on Tuesday, April 8, 2008, at 8 p.m. in Finney Chapel. Maestro Reischl conducts the program, which includes Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round and Sergei Prokofiev’s Three Orchestral Suites from Romeo and Juliet. Desoer studies with Assistant Professor of Cello Darrett Adkins.

Oberlin’s orchestral season concludes on Wednesday, May 7, 2008, at 8 p.m. in Finney Chapel with the Oberlin Orchestra, under the baton of Ms. Reischl, presenting Sergei Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 1, Op. 10 with pianist Nina Zhou. Richard Wagner’s Overture to Die Meistersinger and Richard Strauss’ tone poem Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche complete the program. Zhou is a student of Associate Professor of Piano Angela Cheng.

All concerts are free and open to the public, and take place in Finney Chapel.

Four distinguished guests were jurors for this year’s concerto competition: Mikael Eliasen, head of the voice and opera departments at the Curtis Institute of Music; pianist Arthur Greene; trumpeter Fred Mills, who for more than 20 years was a member of the Canadian Brass; cellist Marcy Rosen of the Mendelssohn String Quartet; and conductor Stephen Simon.

About the Performers

Rachel Desoer started playing the cello at the age of five, studying with Ann Valentyne and Thomas Wiebe. She began work towards her undergraduate degree with Darrett Adkins at the Juilliard School in New York City, and has continued her studies with him at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where she expects to earn a Bachelor of Music degree in cello performance in May 2008. Rachel has won many competitions and awards in her native Canada, including first place in the Canadian Music Competition (1999), the Ben Steinberg Musical Legacy Award, the Galaxy Young Artists Award, and the Orford Arts Center scholarship from the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition (2002). She has attended many summer music festivals, including the Southern Ontario Chamber Music Institute, Morningside Musicbridge, Soundfest, Orford Arts Center, and the Taos School of Music. In October 2005 she performed as guest artist with the Penderecki String Quartet. Rachel was cellist with the Lloyd Carr Harris String Quartet from 2006 to 2007. With the quartet she presented a concert tour in Italy and participated in the Fifth Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition. She is a winner of Oberlin’s 2007 Concerto Competition.

Jeffrey M.L. Hill is a fifth-year vocal performance major from Fruitvale, British Columbia, Canada, studying with Assistant Professor of Voice Kendra Colton. His Oberlin opera credits include Demetrius (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Count Robinson (The Secret Marriage), Belcore (l’Elisir D’Amore), and Herr Fluth (Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor). Scene credits include Damis (Tartuffe), Enrico (Lucia di Lammermoor), Don Giovanni and Masetto (Don Giovanni), and Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas). For Oberlin’s December 2007 opera scenes presentation, he will sing the title character in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Previous to Oberlin, his opera credits from the University of Lethbridge in Alberta included Count Almaviva (The Marriage of Figaro), Mr. Gobineau (The Medium), and Monastatos (The Magic Flute). In addition to opera and art song performance, he is also an avid musical theater lover; his most notable performance is that of Tony in West Side Story (Lethbridge Musical Theatre, 2005). Jeffrey has been studying voice for 17 years in Canada and the U.S. with such teachers as Oberlin’s Emeritus Wheeler Professor of Singing Richard Miller, Patrice Jegou, and Chuck and Audrey Bisset. He also has had the unique opportunity to work with world-renowned mezzo-soprano and teacher Marilyn Horne for the past two years during her residencies at Oberlin. After graduating this year, Jeffrey hopes to pursue a master’s degree in opera theater at Oberlin. He is a winner of Oberlin’s 2007 Concerto Competition.

Nina Zhou, from Winnipeg, Canada, was seven-and-a-half years old when she began her piano education, studying with the late Ann Lugsdin for eight years. The recipient of a Conservatory Dean’s Scholarship, she is pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with Associate Professor of Piano Angela Cheng. Nina has participated in master classes with many prominent pianists, among them Marc Durand, Lee-Kum Sing, Cecile Ousset, Jon Kimura Parker, John Perry, Robert Shannon (Professor of Piano at Oberlin), and Nelita True.

In December 2005, Nina placed second in Oberlin’s Mozart 250th Anniversary Piano Concerto Competition; as a result, she performed on the program for Oberlin’s Mozart Marathon Concert the following month. She is a winner of the 2007 Oberlin Concerto Competition, and will perform Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.1 with the Oberlin Orchestra, under the baton of Bridget-Michaele Reischl, in May 2007. Other upcoming performances include an invitation for a solo concert in the Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg 2008-09 Concert Series.

She attended the Aspen Music Festival in the summer of 2007, studying with Joseph Kalichstein and Anton Nel. She has also participated in the Banff Keyboard Festival, the festival at the Orford Arts Academy, and the Las Vegas Music Festival.

An excellent student, Nina maintains straight A’s at Oberlin. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, watching movies, and playing with her puppy.

Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, and of Armenian descent, Boris Allakhverdyan started taking clarinet lessons from his father at the age of nine, shortly after his family moved to Russia. He entered the Moscow Conservatory Pre-College Division at the age of 13. Following his graduation in 2001, he was admitted to the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he studied with Professor Raphael Bagdasarian and earned a Bachelor of Music degree with honors in 2006. He is currently enrolled in the Artist Diploma program at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he studies with Associate Professor of Clarinet Richard Hawkins. Boris is a winner of numerous competitions, including the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition (as a member of the Prima Trio, 2007, Grand Prize and Gold Medal), Hellam Young Artist’s Competition 2007 (first place), the Rozanov International Clarinet Competition (2000, second place), and the Rimsky-Korsakov International Clarinet Competition (2000, second place). Festivals he has taken part in include the Lucerne Festival Academy under the direction of Pierre Boulez in 2007, the 2007 Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the 2006 Hampden-Sydney Chamber Music Festival, and the 1999 International Music Festival in Offenbach, Germany. Since March 2007, he has held the second clarinet position with Ohio’s Youngstown Symphony Orchestra. Boris has performed as a soloist and with orchestras in Russia, Germany, Denmark, Venezuela, Switzerland, and the United States. He is a winner of Oberlin’s 2007 Concerto Competition.