Last Saturday, Conservatory students performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The program was both highly diverse and highly impressive.

Part of the venue’s Conservatory Project, an initiative of Performing Arts for Everyone’s Millennium Stage, the program combines the brightest young performers with a devoted audience.

The Prima Trio (sophomore Boris Allakhverdyan, clarinet; sophomore Farhad Hudiyev, violin; and senior Anastasia Dedik, piano) opened the concert with Aram Khachaturian’s Trio in G minor.

“The hall was great — the piano was amazing, the audience was warm and welcoming,” Dedik said. “I was honored to perform with professional and experienced musicians such as my colleagues in the trio.”

Being first on the program is always a challenge, but a seven-hour practice session before the performance helped the trio to overcome its slight anxiety and to perform at its best.

“The reception was crowded — there were so many people from the audience who wanted to talk with us,” said Dedik.

The next two pieces in the program represented the first bold shift. Henry Purcell’s songs Lord, what is man? and Hark! How all things with one sound rejoice were performed by sophomore Ben Katz on harpsichord, junior Zoe Weiss on viola da gamba and senior Katherine Lerner singing mezzo-soprano.

“I never did a big, exciting gig like this one and I was a little nervous,” said Weiss. “We did some last-minute changes in the pieces; also, the articulation and the ornaments were improvised on the spot and all of this made us more aware and caring for the music.” Weiss thought that the audience was very brave to endure the rapid style changes in the program.

In contrast, Katz did not feel nervous.

“This concert was a fine opportunity to perform once again this early music.” Ultimately, the acoustics in the Kennedy Center gave birth to new musical ideas, which were employed immediately. It also influenced the way the instruments and musicians were positioned on the stage.

“I was standing at the harpsichord the whole time,” said Katz.

He considered the improvisation an extremely important element of the performance.

“I improvised a transition between the pieces. Fifteen minutes before our turn, we were still trying new things in the backstage,” he said.

After Purcell, there was a big jump to Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70, performed by first-year performance diploma candidate Jorge Mejia on horn and accompanied by senior Megan Glover on piano.

“Megan was just amazing. She is so musical and her technique is great. I never had such a great accompanist,” said Mejia.

He was surprised to see the hall so packed.

“After a performance, I always feel like I could do even better,” he said. “And I wasn’t completely happy from myself that night. But this is the life of the musician – to try to achieve a perfection, which is impossible, because there is no such thing as perfection in this world. And exactly the search for it is the performer’s reason for living. It’s a constant improving.”

After Schumann, the Romantic note lingered a bit longer with Liszt’s songs Die Loreley and Der Fischerknabe, performed by Megan Hart, OC ’05, singing soprano with Glover at the piano again.

To end the concert, the Oberlin Jazz Septet, with senior Allie Bosso on trombone, senior Johnny Butler on saxophone, senior Andrew Conklin on guitar, junior Theodore Croker on trumpet, junior Charles Foldesh on drums, sophomore Sullivan Fortner on piano and senior Curtis Ostle on double bass, performed its own arrangement of “Green Chimneys” by Thelonious Monk.

The selection is of the New Orleans style, which the ensemble learned from a recording.

“It’s a good piece to show all of us as soloists and it gave us room for creativity and collaboration,” said Bosso. “Everyone brought their own interpretation. For example, we had a background with the horns, enhancing someone’s melody that happened at the same time and etcetera.”

The septet knows how to adapt to new spaces, after returning from a two-week-long tour in which the performers played at different halls of various sizes.

“We have a feeling of how ‘live’ the room is, then we listen and compensate for the things that are lacking,” Bosso said.

She is certain about the high professionalism of all the members of the ensemble and trusts them completely.

Oberlin was the only school to bring a jazz performance to the Millennium Stage program.

“We were honored to perform in the Kennedy Center. I’m enormously grateful for all the support and advertisement of the Oberlin Conservatory and Dean Stull,” said Bosso. “We played at our best; we felt that we connected with the people. We made them feel good and after all, this is what our performing is all about.”

After the concert, some alumni approached the ensemble and thanked them for all the joy their music had brought.

This concert was the last in the Millennium Stage Conservatory Project series; it was the cherry on top of a cake made up of the premium conservatories in the United States.