November 21, 2005—Ten concerts, nine days, six cities--the numbers add up to an intense tour schedule under ordinary circumstances. But for student-musicians from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the intensity is heightened by the fact that the six cities are in the People's Republic of China.

The Oberlin Orchestra, an ensemble of 66 Conservatory students selected by audition, leaves for China on December 23, and will perform in some of China's premier venues, including the Beijing Poly Theater and the Shanghai Concert Hall.

The tour begins with three concerts in Anshan, in central Liaoning Province, followed by a performance in Shenyang. From there it's on to Dalian, at the southern tip of the province, for two concerts. Two evening performances in Beijing are next on the itinerary, followed by a concert in Tianjing. The tour concludes with a performance in Shanghai. The musicians return home on January 5, 2006.

All of the members of the Oberlin Orchestra are undergraduates. They represent cities throughout the United States and Canada, as well as South Korea, Bulgaria, Denmark, and Singapore. Bridget-Michaele Reischl, music director of the Oberlin Orchestras, will conduct the ensemble during the tour; J Freivogel of St. Louis, Missouri, is concertmaster.

Along with intensive rehearsal sessions, the student-musicians are preparing for the tour by taking a course, China Tour Preparation, offered by the East Asian studies department of Oberlin College, the Conservatory's liberal arts counterpart.

Funding for the tour is being provided by the Liaoning Performance Company, a presenting company from China; Chinese businessman Sen Wang; the Chinese Ministry of Culture; and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

The concert program includes the overture to Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, selections from Bizet's Carmen, Strauss' Blue Danube, Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 5, Dvorák' s Slavonic Dances Op. 46, Nos. 1, 3, and 8, and Chinese folk songs. In addition, this core program will alternate George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with Igor Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite. Pianist Thomas Rosenkranz, a 1999 graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory, will be the featured soloist for the Gershwin.

The orchestra also will perform the official songs of Anshan, Dalian, and Beijing, respectively, during concerts in those cities. In Dalian, the Oberlin Orchestra will perform under the baton of guest conductor Fan Tao. Tao, a conductor with the China Broadcasting Performing-Arts Troupe, was awarded a special prize at the 2000 Sibelius International Conducting Competition in Helsinki, Finland.

A trip to China made last spring by the dean of the Oberlin Conservatory, David H. Stull, and several faculty members was the genesis of this tour. The Oberlin contingent was invited by the Szechuan Conservatory in Cheng du and visited major concert halls and music schools, where they gave master classes.

"Our primary interest was to visit major schools to get a sense of their philosophy of teaching and to establish at least an informal relationship with the leaders of those institutions," says Stull. In April, five members of the Szechuan Conservatory made a reciprocal visit to Oberlin to explore the nuances of American conservatory training.

"This China tour will be of immense educational benefit to Oberlin students," says tour manager James Kalyn. "In addition to the musical growth they will experience by performing the same pieces over and over again--something students in conservatory orchestras rarely get to do--they will be exposed to the culture of an emerging economic superpower."

"China now produces some of the world's finest musicians," adds Stull. "Many of these young people come to Oberlin to study. Of the 50 students enrolled in the Conservatory from countries in Asia, 15 are from China. It is in our own students' best interest to explore the educational and performance opportunities this country has to offer."

Bridget-Michaele Reischl, Music Director, Oberlin Orchestra
Since becoming the first American to win Italy's Antonio Pedrotti International Conducting Competition in 1995, Bridget-Michaele Reischl has been an active guest conductor throughout the United States and abroad. Besides being music director of the Oberlin Orchestras and a member of Oberlin's conducting faculty, Reischl is music director of the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra in Green Bay, Wisconsin, a position she has held since 2001. From 1992 to 2004, she was music director of the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra and associate professor of conducting at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wisconsin. She is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music. As a student of Robert Spano (a 1983 Oberlin graduate), she continued her studies as a conducting fellow at both the Aspen and the Tanglewood music festivals, where she worked with Seiji Ozawa, Murray Sidlin, and David Zinman (also an Oberlin graduate, Class of 1958). She has recorded on the Velut Luna, CRI, and Sea Breeze Record Company labels.

J. Freivogel, concertmaster
Raised in a family of musicians, J. Freivogel began playing violin at the age of two. Now in his last year of Oberlin's double-degree program, he studies violin with Marilyn McDonald and is pursuing degrees in violin performance and politics. Named one of Northern Ohio Live magazine's "best and brightest" in 2004, Freivogel has participated in critically acclaimed concerts at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall and Merkin Hall in New York City. He is first violinist of the Jasper String Quartet. In the spring, he will return to New York to perform Alban Berg's Kammerkonzerte and the world premiere of Lewis Nielson's Violin Concerto. Freivogel is from St. Louis, Missouri.

The Oberlin Orchestra and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music
After Sir Simon Rattle conducted the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra in December 2004, Plain Dealer music critic Donald Rosenberg wrote that the concert was "stamped by magnificence." Indeed, Rosenberg included the Oberlin-Rattle performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 4, which he described as "uncommonly rich in poetry and drama," in his list of top 10 memorable events from the 2004 concert season.

Magnificence has come to be synonymous with all aspects of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, from its exacting standards for incoming students to the excellence in teaching and performance expected of its faculty and the notable careers of its alumni, who can be found performing in every major orchestra and opera house and with many of today's acclaimed chamber ensembles.

Founded in 1865 and situated within the intellectual vitality of Oberlin College since 1867, Oberlin is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. An undergraduate institution, Oberlin is renowned internationally as a professional music school of the highest caliber and has been called a "national treasure" by the Washington Post.

Past guest conductors of the Oberlin Orchestra have included Marin Alsop, Pierre Boulez, Catherine Comet, Tan Dun, Eve Queler, Robert Shaw, Oscar Shumsky, Igor Stravinsky, composer John Williams, and Hugh Wolff.

Upcoming appearances by the Oberlin Orchestra for the 2005-06 season include a performance at Cleveland's Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra, under the baton of music director and conductor Bridget-Michaele Reischl. The 2006-07 season features a performance at Carnegie Hall with Robert Spano conducting.

For more information about the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, please visit www.oberlin.edu/con.

Oberlin College's Historic Ties to China
For more than a century, Oberlin College and China have benefited from a mutually supportive relationship encompassing educational, social, and cultural exchanges, beginning with the teaching work of Oberlin graduates in the late 1800s. To commemorate the efforts of Oberlin educators in China, the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association was founded in 1908, more than 50 years before the Peace Corps was begun. Today Shansi is an independent non-profit organization on the Oberlin campus that sponsors numerous educational exchanges, sending Oberlin students to sites throughout Asia to work and to teach and bringing Asian scholars to the College for the same purpose. Shansi has empowered generations of participants to make constructive and useful contributions to Asian and American institutions and communities.

Another strong Oberlin-China connection can be found at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, the oldest conservatory in China. Huang Tzu, a 1926 Oberlin graduate who is widely considered to be one of the patriarchs of Western music education in modern China, was one of its founding fathers. He wrote the school's curriculum, which ultimately became the platform for the professional study of music in China.

Concert Schedule

• December 25, 2005
  Anshan
  Shengli Auditorium, 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.
• December 26, 2005
  Anshan
  Shengli Auditorium, 7 p.m.
• December 27, 2005
  Shenyang
  Nanfeng International Centre, 7 p.m.
• December 28, 2005
  Dalian
  Dalian Broadcasting Centre, 7 p.m.
• December 29, 2005
  Dalian
  Dalian Broadcasting Centre, 7 p.m.
• December 30, 2005
  Beijing
  Poly Theatre, 7 p.m.
• December 31, 2005
  Beijing
  Poly Theatre, 7 p.m.
• January 1, 2006
  Tianjing
  Venue TBA, 7 p.m.
• January 2, 2006
  Shanghai
  Shanghai Concert Hall, 7 p.m.