Oberlin Portrait: Michael Lynn

Michael Lynn

Michael Lynn's curriculum vitae reads like the passport of a Renaissance explorer touring the 21st century. An early music scholar, he is professor of recorder and baroque flute. ("I've taught here for more than half my life," he says. "The years I commuted back and forth between Ann Arbor and Oberlin are equal to driving around the earth 2.5 times.")

As a performer, he has been a member of Apollo's Fire (the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra), since helping to found it in 1991. His extensive list of non-Apollo's Fire performance credits also includes an appearance with the Cleveland Orchestra.

Lynn is also the Conservatory's associate dean for facilities and technology, which means his knowledge of state-of-the-art developments in audio sound capabilities, the Internet and computer soft- and hardware must be up to scratch. Definitely 21st-century stuff.

The time warp doesn't bother him at all. In fact, he says, navigating two diverse subjects and centuries provides him with "a kind of balance.

"I enjoy both disciplines--and time periods--very much; in a way, both are pure. I try to be creative in my music making. I like doing pieces for the first time--this happens frequently in early music because we're often pulling up works that haven't been done for the past couple hundred years. I think of technology in the same way: doing things for the first time. What I enjoy about the technology is the newness of it. What I learned five years ago isn't as interesting to me as what I'm going to learn next month. I feel very lucky that, here at Oberlin, we are serious about both old music and new technology!"

Lynn's computer technology epiphany occurred during the mid-1970s. He had established a publishing company that produced facsimiles of early editions of music. Necessity being the mother of software, he began experimenting with the technology in order to help him run his company; he had invoices and inventories to keep straight. He has since sold the company, but the fascination for technology--and producing facsimiles--remains.

Lately, Lynn has been brushing up his Monteverdi in anticipation of The Monteverdi Experience, a festival of concerts, recitals, and lectures presented by Apollo's Fire throughout various locales in the Cleveland and Akron area.

On Sunday, May 6, Lynn will participate in a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Thomas Forrest Kelly, chair of the department of music at Harvard University (and former director of Oberlin's historical performance program and one-time acting dean).

Is Monteverdi one of his favorite composers?

Lynn's response is diplomatic. "I would list Monteverdi up there pretty high. He isn't really a recorder or a flute player's composer, but it's spectacular and exciting musically to be in the middle of his works. Vespers is a great example of this. The recorder plays very little--only 16 measures in the entire piece are indicated for the instrument, although we actually play more than that, just to add color."

Lynn is--unequivocally--a Bach man. "There's so much to like about music of Bach--the cantatas, the passions--I really like the big works, even more than the flute sonatas. Last summer, with my parents and my wife Kathie [Visiting Teacher of Baroque Flute Kathie Lynn], I spent a couple of weeks in Leipzig going to the big Bach 2000 Festival and listening to these works done in Bach's own churches."

Lynn recalls the trip with all the pleasure of Proust munching on a madeleine.

Lynn's real "musical pilgrimage" began long before last summer. His parents are musicians--his mother a flutist, his father a keyboard player, musicologist and Bach scholar. "I grew up with a harpsichord in the house," he recalls. He began playing the recorder when he was five. He says that not only was it a "very natural" thing for him to do, it was also "a precursor to learning the flute."

Singing was also a big part of his life, and, a few years later, took precedence for a time.

Lynn attended the Columbus Boychoir School in Princeton, New Jersey (now known as the American Boychoir.) The experience provided him with extraordinary opportunities. Besides touring the United States, Canada, and Japan, Lynn took part in many important musical performances, among them the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Kaddish Symphony, with Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic.

But boys' voices change, as boys' voices do. And although vocal performance was Lynn's concentration at Indiana University (he began his studies there while attending University High School in Bloomington), he was still enamored of the recorder, and began studying it with Lyle Nordstrom after transferring to Oakland University.

"From that point," he says, "I decided that there was all manner of music--mainly Bach cantatas--that I wasn't going to get to play unless I learned to play the baroque flute, so I taught myself."
Does he miss singing?

Noting the joy that sitting in the midst of Monteverdi's Vespers has brought him, he replies:

"I really don't sing anymore, but I wish I were singing this."

What inspired you to be a musician? What keeps you inspired on discouraging days?

Doing music inspired me to be a musician. For me it was totally natural; I've done it for my entire life. I do it because I love the music . . . I love the experience of the music. I don't have musically discouraging days. Sometimes I have administratively discouraging days, then music is what makes me feel better.

What is the most memorable performance you have ever seen and why?

This is one that I cannot answer. I mostly think about performances that I've been in--as a kid, as a student, as a professional. The Bernstein thing as a kid was an incredible experience--being part of a huge production like that was wonderful. For me, things are more evolutionary; I gain something by each thing I hear or participate in. For example, the last Apollo's Fire concert here at Finney was really intense, lively, genuine music-making.

If you could perform with any musician, living or dead, who would it be? What would you perform?

Bach. St. John Passion.

If you could master another instrument, what would it be?

The cello, because I've tried a little enough of it to know how much I'd like to be good at it--and I'm not. For someone who mostly plays treble instruments, there's an attraction to playing a bass instrument. I love the cello's voice.

If you could not be a musician, what other profession would you choose? What profession would you definitely not choose?

I wouldn't want to do something boring and repetitive. Working in a factory or a nine-to-five job. I've always been very interested in photography. I certainly could have succumbed to the computer thing.

What do you listen to for inspiration? In your free time?

I listen to a lot of music, but what I listen to for inspiration falls into two categories: Bach's sacred works, or large-scale sacred music of the French baroque--particularly wonderful and inspiring. I also really like Celtic music, which is inspiring in a different way. [Lynn plays in an Irish band called Turn the Corner.] In my free time: same thing.

What do you like to read?

I don't have time for much recreational reading. When I travel, it's science fiction books. Right now I'm on the seventh book of The Chronicles of Narnia, which I'm reading to my seven-year-old daughter, Sarah. I also read a lot of things related to my field. I'm an extremely avid collector; my specialty is U.S. stamps, including Oberlin postal history. My grandfather was a stamp collector, physics teacher, astronomy person--these are all things I've had an interest in.

What are three words that describe you?

Relaxed (most of the time), inquisitive, I hope creative. I think of myself as an idea person who has too many ideas.