February 20, 2006—The Oberlin College Choir, directed by Associate Professor of Choral Conducting Hugh Floyd, will join the Kronos Quartet in a multi-media concert experience at Cleveland's Masonic Temple and Performing Arts Center on Saturday, Feb. 25, 2006, at 7:30 p.m. The concert features Terry Riley's Sun Rings, an amalgam of choral music, electronic sounds from outer space, and dazzling visual projections from the Milky Way. The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) presents the event as part of its VIVA! and Gala Around Town Series.

Admission to the performance is $39 for the general public, $34 for CMA members, and $10 for students with a valid I.D. To order tickets, please call 1-888-CMA-0033 or visit www.cma.org/perform.

Completed in 2002, Riley's Sun Rings uses the sounds of space to influence the writing of the string quartet, allowing for interplay between recorded space sounds and live string playing. Commissioned by NASA, Sun Rings features music by Riley that incorporates sounds from the Milky Way such as crackling solar windstorms, the whistling of lighting on Jupiter, and other sounds, triggered by Kronos using an interactive computer. In addition, noted visual designer Willie Williams (who has worked with the rock groups U2 and R.E.M.) prepared images of the solar system photographed by the Voyager and Galileo space probes that will be projected onto a screen behind the ensemble. Sight and sound coupled together, Sun Rings culminates in an unparalleled visual and aural experience.

A reviewer for the Los Angeles Times wrote of a recent performance: "Galaxies carpet the walls and Riley's generous melodies flow through Kronos' four string instruments. The audience sat in spellbound silence."

Spending five months of each year touring concert halls, clubs, and festivals worldwide, the multi-Grammy Award winning Kronos Quartet has boisterously broken down genre barriers expected of string quartets. Performing live with contemporary greats Tom Waits and David Bowie and recording with such diversely talented singer-songwriters as Dave Matthews and Nelly Furtado, Kronos has altered perceptions of what a string quartet should be in the 21st century.

About the Oberlin College Choir
The Oberlin College Choir is a highly select ensemble chosen from students at the Conservatory and the College. Founded by Olaf C. Christiansen in 1929, it has been led by such illustrious conductors as Robert Fountain and Daniel Moe, and has won critical acclaim for performances in the United States and abroad, appearing in such prestigious venues as the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall. In recent years, the choir has sung regularly with the Cleveland Orchestra in Severance Hall; for the 2005-2006 season the choir sang Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream with Dame Felicity Lott. The choir's most recent off-campus performance was in Chicago at the American Choral Directors Central Division Convention (February 2006). Upcoming projects include a dual language holiday recording for EMI.

Director Hugh Floyd
Hugh Ferguson Floyd is director of choral activities at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and at the Interlochen Arts Camp. At Oberlin, he conducts the Oberlin College Choir, the Oberlin College Singers, the Oberlin Musical Union, and, in rotation, the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra. Floyd is a graduate of Furman University, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Michigan. Prior to joining the Oberlin faculty, Floyd was conducting assistant with the Charlotte (North Carolina) Symphony and director of the Oratorio Singers of Charlotte. He served as chorus master for the Grand Rapids (Michigan) Symphony, and chorus master and conductor in residence at the Brevard Music Center. He has prepared choirs for such eminent conductors as Robert Shaw, Margaret Hillis, Robert Page, Franz Welser-Möst, and Robert Spano.

The Oberlin College Choir and the Kronos Quartet
Sun Rings , by Terry Riley - Presented by The Cleveland Museum of Art's VIVA! and Gala Around Town Series

Saturday, Feb. 25, 2006 at 7:30 p.m. at Cleveland's Masonic Temple and Performing Arts Center
3615 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44115
(Parking is available at Applied Technologies directly across E. 36th from the auditorium entrance.)

Tickets: $39 General Public, $34 for CMA members, and $10 for students with valid I.D. Call 1-888-CMA-0033 to order your tickets today.