March 17, 2006 — The Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble (CME), under the direction of Timothy Weiss, will present an ambitious, diverse, and provocative evening of new music, including two world premieres, on Sunday, April 30, at 8 p.m. at Merkin Concert Hall. One of the premieres, Trespass, by New York-based composer Jason Eckardt, was commissioned by the CME and is dedicated to pianist Marilyn Nonken -- called a "determined protector of important music" by the New York Times -- who will perform the work.

Tickets are $10 for the general public, $5 for seniors and students, and free for those with an Oberlin College I.D. or for Oberlin alumni. All seats are reserved. For more information, please call the Merkin Hall box office at (212) 501-3330 or visit www.kaufman-center.org. Merkin Hall is located in the Kaufman Center at 129 W. 67 th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam.

The second world premiere on the program, St. Francis Preaches to the Birds, is by Lewis Nielson, Professor of Composition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Nielson's work is dedicated to violinist J Freivogel, who graduates from Oberlin this year with degrees in violin performance and politics, and who appears on the program as soloist. Other works being performed are Alban Berg's double concerto for violin and piano, Kammerkonzert, and Professor of Composition and Music Theory Randolph Coleman's Apparitions, composed in 2003 and revised in 2006.

Oberlin's triennial commissioning program, of which the first work was James Dillon's The Soadie Waste for piano quintet, was instituted in 2002. Future plans call for a 2009 commission by British composer Rebecca Saunders. "These commissions have not only been a way for us to make a real contribution to contemporary music," says Strickland Gardner Professor of Music Timothy Weiss, Director of the CME, "but they have also given our student performers the kind of challenges they will have to meet in their professional careers. The commissions bring out the best in us, and the Dillon and Eckardt works are certainly major contributions to new music."

Weiss says that the decision to select the next composer to commission was "an easy one. Jason Eckardt is one of America's most interesting and significant young composers, and he is well known at Oberlin. The result was everything we could hope for, both as a challenge for our players and in the design of the piece itself." In Trespass, Eckardt takes an unusual approach to arranging his material, beginning with a textural density best described as climactic. The opening tension never returns, but the excitement created by its unconventionality remains as the piece gives way to a highly contrasting, lyrical exploration of piano and ensemble sonority. Trespass is challenging for all the performers -- for the pianist especially -- but the virtuosity it demands never overshadows the complex and luscious manipulation of register and color.

Eckardt and Marilyn Nonken, who will play Trespass's difficult piano part and to whom the work is dedicated, have been dynamic presences on New York's new-music scene for more than 10 years. In 1993, while students at Columbia, they cofounded Ensemble 21, now one of the leading ensembles dedicated to the music of our time. Since those salad days, Eckardt has received commissions from Carnegie Hall and percussionist Evelyn Glennie, among others; has been featured on the Miller Theatre's Composer Portraits series; and has recently released Out of Chaos, a CD of his chamber music performed by Ensemble 21 on the Mode label. Nonken, recognized as "one of the greatest interpreters of new music" by the American Record Guide and as "a pianist from music's leading edge" by the New York Times, has toured with the complete piano music of Boulez, Murail, and Schoenberg. Her performance of Kammerkonzert with the CME will be a "premiere" of sorts in that it will be the first time she has played the work.

This is the fourth New York appearance of the CME in two years; most recently, the ensemble sold out the 680-seat Miller Theater with an all-Ligeti concert that featured violinist Jennifer Koh '97. Bradley Bambarger of the Star-Ledger wrote that the "young Oberlin performers played not only with precision but zeal."

Considered one of the premiere new music ensembles in higher education in the United States, the CME performs music of all styles and genres, with a repertoire that is as broad as the entirety of contemporary music. In addition to giving first performances of new works by prominent composers, the CME has also premiered works by student, faculty, and alumni composers. Many famous and respected new music performers have been guest soloists with the CME; besides Marilyn Nonken, these have included Stephen Drury, Jennifer Koh, Steven Schick, and Ursula Oppens. In May 2005, the CME, under the baton of Timothy Weiss, performed two concerts of works by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, who was in residence at Oberlin. Oberlin has long been an undergraduate haven for many nationally acclaimed composers, chamber musicians, and ensembles, and several rising young performers of new music began their careers as members of the CME, including eighth blackbird and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE).

Jason Eckardt
Jason Eckardt is one of the United States' most interesting and significant young composers. He played guitar in rock and jazz bands until, upon first hearing the music of Webern, he immediately devoted himself to composition. Since then, his interests in perceptual complexity, performance virtuosity, and self-organizing processes in the natural world have influenced his music. He has been recognized through commissions from Carnegie Hall, the Koussevitzky and Fromm Foundations, the Guggenheim Museum, the Oberlin Conservatory, and percussionist Evelyn Glennie; fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, Fondation Royaumont, the MacDowell and Millay Colonies, the Fritz Reiner Center, the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, and the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust; and awards from the League/ISCM, Deutschen Musikrat-Stadt Wesel, the Aaron Copland Fund, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, ASCAP, the University of Illinois, and Columbia University. Eckardt's music has been programmed on festivals including the Festival d'Automne, Darmstadt, IRCAM-Resonances, the ISCM World Music Days, Voix Nouvelles, Musik im 20. Jahrhundert, Currents in Musical Thought-Seoul, and the International Bartók Festival. An active promoter of new music, Eckardt is a cofounder and the Executive Director of the New York City-based contemporary music group Ensemble 21. Recordings of Eckardt's works are available on the CRI, Helicon, and Metier labels; a portrait CD titled Out of Chaos is available from Mode. He is currently a Guggenheim Fellow and lives in New York.

Marilyn Nonken
Marilyn Nonken has emerged as one of the most gifted young musicians dedicated to the modern and contemporary repertoires. Upon her 1993 New York debut, the New York Times heralded her as "a determined protector of important music." She has appeared on the Boston Globe's "Best of the Year" list five times (1997-2002), and she has been recognized as "one of the greatest interpreters of new music" by the American Record Guide.

Her performances have been presented by, among others, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Guggenheim Museum, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Miller Theatre, the Phillips Collection, and Cooper Union, as well as universities and conservatories around the world. In the past two seasons, she has been presented in America, France, Canada, Denmark, Australia, Italy, the Czech Republic, England, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Composers who have written for her include Milton Babbitt, Mario Davidovsky, Chris Dench, Jason Eckardt, Michael Finnissy, Tristan Murail, Jeff Nichols, David Rakowski, and Paul Nauert, and she has recently commissioned Pascal Dusapin and Drew Baker. An acclaimed chamber musician, she plays with Ensemble 21 (the new music group of which she is Artistic Director and a cofounder), the Group for Contemporary Music, MusicNOW (Chicago Symphony), and Elision (Melbourne); she has also appeared as a guest with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Nonken's discography features recordings on New World Records, Mode, Lovely Music, Albany, Metier, and CRI. American Spiritual, a CD of works written for her, was released in 2001; 2004 releases include Feldman's Triadic Memories, Rakowski's Martian Counterpoint, and Eckardt's Out of Chaos (with Ensemble 21). Her latest release is Tristan Murail: The Complete Piano Music (Metier). Upcoming chamber releases include music of William Albright (PRISM Saxophone Quartet), Brian Ferneyhough (Elision), Charles Wuorinen (cellist Fred Sherry), and Louis Karchin (saxophonist Taimur Sullivan).

A student of David Burge at the Eastman School, Nonken earned a PhD in musicology at Columbia University. Nonken is a Steinway Artist.

Timothy Weiss
Conductor Timothy Weiss has gained critical acclaim throughout the United States and abroad for his performances and brave, adventurous programming. In his 14 years as music director of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, he has brought the group to a level of artistry and virtuosity in performance rivaling that of the finest professional new music groups. After a recent concert with the ensemble in Carnegie Hall, Anthony Aibel of the New York Concert Review wrote: "Under the direction of Timothy Weiss [the ensemble] presented unbelievably polished, superb performances--impeccable performances--of extremely challenging recent music. ... Their level of preparation eclipses the highest standard. ... Each work on the program had something vital to say, something profound, and [Weiss] was able to communicate the music's message with vitality and insight, despite its extreme difficulty and somewhat foreign language. Weiss conducted with economy of gesture--never over conducting, never distracting from the music ... the performance ... cohered like one instrument with perfection thanks to the expert preparation by Timothy Weiss."  

Weiss is committed to exploring connections within and between pieces in his performances and searching for similarities of voice between composers from seemingly different genres, periods, and backgrounds. Accordingly, his programs often present rare and revealing juxtapositions, offering a broad range of works from the minimalists to the maximalists, from the old to the new, and from the mainstream to the obscure. His repertoire in contemporary music is vast and fearless, including masterworks, very recent compositions, and an impressive number of premieres and commissions. He recently received the American Symphony Orchestra League's Adventurous Programming Award.

As an active guest conductor, Weiss has conducted recent concerts with the BBC Scottish Symphony in Glasgow, Scotland, and with ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble) in New York's Miller Theater and San Francisco's Hertz Hall. He also has conducted the Toledo Symphony, the Newark-Granville Symphony Orchestra, the Quad City Symphony, San Angelo Symphony, the Detroit Chamber Winds, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the Symphony Orchestra of the Nacional Association de Conciertos in Panama City, Panama, and the ensemble Synergy Vocals at the Almeida Opera Festival in London, England.

Weiss's collaborations with composers, performers, and choreographers include recent performances with Ursula Oppens, Jennifer Koh '97, Marilyn Nonken, Harrison Birtwistle, Joan Tower, Tania Leon, Tan Dun, Kevin Volans, James Dillon, Brian Ferneyhough, Lewis Nielson, and John Luther Adams. Upcoming collaborations include the American premiere of Olga Neuwirth's opera Lost Highway based on the movie by David Lynch.

A committed educator, Weiss is Professor of Conducting and Chair of the Division of Conducting and Ensembles at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he created and mentored the ensemble eighth blackbird.  He holds degrees from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, Northwestern University, and the University of Michigan.

Lewis Nielson
Lewis Nielson studied music at the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, Clark University in Massachusetts, and the University of Iowa, earning a PhD in music theory and composition in 1977. His music appears through American Composers Edition and CDs of his music are available from Albany, MMC, Centaur, and Innova Recordings. He has received numerous honors for his works, including grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Delius Foundation, Meet the Composer, the Georgia Council for the Arts, the Groupe de Music Expèrimentale de Bourges in France, the Ibla Foundation in Sicily, Pi Kappa Lambda, and the International Society of Bassists. He has received many commissions from solo performers and such important orchestral and chamber ensembles as the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet, the Iowa Center for New Music, the new music group Thamyris, and the Aurora Brass Quintet, and his works have been performed throughout the United States and Europe. Among the more notable performances of his large works have been those by the Lake Placid Sinfonietta, the American Composer's Orchestra, the Fresno (Calif.) Philharmonic, and recent CD recording and performance projects with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra of Bratislava, the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Tchaikovsky Symphony of Moscow Radio. He served as Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Georgia, where he directed the University of Georgia Contemporary Chamber Ensemble for 21 years. In 2000, he joined the composition faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he is currently Professor of Composition, Chair of the Composition Department, and Director of the Contemporary Music Division.

Randolph Coleman
Composer Randolph Coleman was born and bred in the south (Charlottesville, Virginia), educated in the Midwest (mostly Northwestern University), has taught mostly in the Mideast (Oberlin, Ohio) and has lived abroad for extended periods (in France, Spain, Italy, Mexico, and England).

Among the many honors his music has received are those from the Fromm Foundation, the International Society for Contemporary Music, the Fullbright Foundation, the Ohio State Arts Council, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Among the major ensembles that have performed his music, in the United States and in Europe, are the Boston Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the Xenakis Ensemble, the Blackearth Percussion Ensemble, the Percussion Group Cincinnati, and eighth blackbird. In 2002 he was awarded a residency at the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy. His discography includes the compact disc dig.it iic, performed and recorded by the Percussion Group Cincinnati.

Many dance companies, including the Oberlin Dance Collective from San Francisco, the Cleveland Repertory Theater, and the Cincinnati Dance Company, have choreographed and performed his music throughout the United States, Europe, China, Japan, and Iceland, and he has collaborated on many theater projects, including the Orestia and The Donner Party, with Herbert Blau and the experimental theater company Kraken, whose members included Bill Irwin and Julie Taymor.

His music covers a wide range of styles and genres that stem directly from his life, which has included performance (on piano and trombone), conducting new music, and writing about many genres of music --traditional chamber and symphonic works, jazz, rhythm and blues and a variety of non-western musics -- for NOTES (the journal of the Music Library Association), Fine Arts, and other publications.

Coleman has been on the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music since 1965. He directed the InterArts Program and is frequently chair of the Composition Department. He was the founding chairman of the Society of Composers, Inc . (formerly the American Society of University Composers) and has held dozens of residencies at universities, including the universities of Michigan, Illinois, Texas, and Yale; at the Peabody School of Music; and at such independent institutions as the Benjamin Franklin Library in Mexico City and the Doge Palace in Venice, Italy.

About the Oberlin Conservatory of Music
The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, founded in 1865 and situated within the intellectual vitality of Oberlin College since 1867, is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. Renowned internationally as a professional music school of the highest caliber and pronounced a "national treasure" by the Washington Post, its alumni have gone on to achieve illustrious careers in all aspects of the serious music world. Numerous Oberlin alumni have attained stature as solo performers, composers, and conductors, among them Jennifer Koh, Steven Isserlis, Denyce Graves, Franco Farina, Lisa Saffer, George Walker, Christopher Rouse, David Zinman, Robert Spano, and Michael Christie. All of the members of the contemporary music ensembles eighth blackbird and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) are Oberlin graduates, and members of the Miró, Pacifica, Juilliard, and Fry Street quartets, among others, include Oberlin alumni, who can also be found in major orchestras and opera companies throughout the world. For more information about Oberlin, please visit www.oberlin.edu.

Calendar Listing:
Sunday, April 30, at 8 p.m.|
The Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble with Timothy Weiss, conductor; Marilyn Nonken, piano; and J Freivogel, violin.

JASON ECKARDT, Trespass*
LEWIS NIELSON, St. Francis Preaches to the Birds**
ALBAN BERG, Kammerkonzert
RANDOLPH COLEMAN, Apparitions

*World premiere/CME commission dedicated to Marilyn Nonken

** World premiere/Dedicated to violinist J Freivogel

Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center
129 West 67 th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam)

New York, New York 10023
Box Office: 212-501-3330

Reserved Seat Tickets:$10 general public; $5 seniors and students; Free for those with an Oberlin College I.D. & for Oberlin alumni.