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A segment filmed in Oberlin's
Finney Chapel may be part of CBS Sunday Morning's
feature on the eighth blackbird.
Eighth Blackbird to Appear on CBS Sunday Morning and Make NYC Debut
"I know noble accents and lucid, inescapable rhythms.
But I know, too, that the blackbird is involved in what I know."
--Wallace Stevens, from "Thirteen Ways of
Looking at a Blackbird"
NOVEMBER 6, 1998--It's the dream of any young performer: a feature on a top-rated, national television program, followed closely by a debut performance in the Big Apple. A group of six Oberlin alumni known as eighth blackbird will soon experience this formula for national exposure, beginning with a featured segment on CBS Sunday Morning this Sunday at 9 A.M. (EST). The CBS Sunday Morning crew traveled to Oberlin this past April to film an eighth blackbird rehearsal and performance in Finney Chapel; Sunday's segment may include footage from that occasion.
Just 10 days after the television broadcast--Wednesday, November 18--the group's New York City debut concert is slated for 7:30 P.M. in the Merkin Concert Hall. After the concert, eighth blackbird will meet with Oberlin alumni attending the event.
The concert repertoire will feature "Petroushskates" by Joan Tower, "Fantasy Études" by Fred Lerdahl, "Come Round" by Jacob Druckman, and "Thirteen Ways," a piece written especially for them based on the Wallace Stevens poem from which the group takes its name: "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."
The debut concert is part of the group's first-prize award in the 1998 Concert Artists Guild International Competition. The award includes two years of exclusive management under Concert Artists Guild, a commission from a composer, and a New York concert debut.
Eighth blackbird is an instrumental sextet specializing in the performance of new music. The addition of percussion to the core quintet (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano) creates the instrumentation of the ensemble. While eighth blackbird emphasizes performing new music as a sextet, the group's repertoire includes the music of many periods in a variety of instrumental combinations.
The group is composed of Molly Barth '97 (flute), Michael Maccaferri '96 (clarinet), Matthew Albert '96 (violin), Nicholas Photinos '96 (cello), Lisa Kaplan '96 (piano), and Matthew Duvall '95 (percussion). Formed during the 1994 fall semester at Oberlin, eighth blackbird was created as a select group for the Contemporary Music Ensemble, conducted by Timothy Weiss, associate professor of wind conducting.
Eighth blackbird first rose to national attention after winning the 1996 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. The ensemble has since won the 1997 Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition and the Channel Classics recording prize. The Channel Classics prize includes an appearance at the 1999 Rockport Chamber Music Festival in Rockport, Massachussets. All the group's members are enrolled in the Cincinnati College-Conservatory's Artist Diploma in Chamber Music program.
Matt Albert says on behalf of his colleagues that "one of eighth blackbird's most firmly held beliefs is the importance of communicating with an audience.
"Since we love what we're doing, why not show it to the people who pay to hear us? New music is fun for us, and we want to make it fun for the audience. So much about chamber music is inherently and wonderfully exciting. We feel it our duty to redesign the concert-going experience, both for our peers and for those who come after us."
