Oberlin Conservatory Takes Manhattan, Part 1

Conservatory of Music students, faculty, and alumni converged in New York City last week for the 2013 Illumination Tour, three days of making music that ranged from baroque to jazz, from contemporary to classical. Gathered here are photos from two of the four venues in which the musicians performed—the DiMenna Center and Carnegie Hall. Photos of the Oberlin Jazz Faculty Ensemble performing at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola at the Lincoln Center are coming soon, along with photos of Oberlin Baroque and the Oberlin College Choir performing at Brick Church.

The Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble (CME) and conductor Timothy Weiss performed two concerts with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music on January 18. Their program included the world premiere of John Zorn’s The Tempest along with works by Mario Diaz De León ’04, Tom Lopez ’88, Eric Wubbles, Luciano Berio, David Lang, and Christopher Rouse ’71. Six members of ICE, all Oberlin alumni, performed with the CME; ICE was founded by alumni in 2001.

The Oberlin Orchestra, with conductor Raphael Jiménez and guest soloist Jeremy Denk, took to Carnegie Hall’s Perelman Stage on January 19. The program included the New York premiere of Iscariot by Christopher Rouse ’71 and works by Mozart, Ravel, and Stravinsky. A reviewer from coolcleveland.com caught the show and declared it a triumph in a January 21 blog post. The concert was preceded by a conversation, Forging the Future: The Successful Creation, Transmission, and Celebration of New Music, that featured panelists Claire Chase ’01, 2012 MacArthur Fellow and founder of ICE, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Christopher Rouse ’71; Timothy Weiss, director of the CME, and conversation moderator David H. Stull ’88, dean of the conservatory. Parts of their conversation were tweeted from the conservatory’s Twitter.

More photos of rehearsals as well as performances are on the conservatory’s Facebook page, and videos from behind the scenes are on Oberlin’s YouTube channel. Three student musicians blogged for Symphony Now about preparing for the tour.