Violinist Tessa Lark to Perform Nov. 19 as Part of Oberlin’s Artist Recital Series

Violinist Tessa Lark, winner of the 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a top finisher in numerous major international competitions, will present a recital with pianist Andrew Armstrong in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel at 4 p.m. Sunday, November 19.

The performance marks the fourth date of the 2017-18 Artist Recital Series at Oberlin.

Prior to her concert, Lark will lead a public master class in Kulas Recital Hall at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, November 18.

Lark’s Oberlin program will include Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne, Ravel’s Violin Sonata No. 2, Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances, Richard Strauss’ Violin Sonata in E-flat Major, Martín Rojas’ En La Orilla Del Mundo (“At the Edge of the World”), and Manuel Ponce’s Estrellita (“Little Star”).

A rising star in her own right, Lark earned second prize in the 2014 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis—the same year she received a Leonore Annenberg Fellowship for the Performing and Visual Arts. In 2012 she won the Naumburg International Violin Competition.

A native of Kentucky, Lark made her concerto debut with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at age 16. She performed in Weill Recital Hall in February 2017 as a featured artist on Carnegie Hall’s Distinctive Debuts series—a concert that featured the premiere of her own composition Appalachian Fantasy. Lark will return to Carnegie Hall twice this spring as part of two separate five-concert chamber music tours with Musicians from Marlboro.

(Sample her artistry with this clip from 2013 of Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances, which she will revisit in Oberlin.)

In addition to her burgeoning career playing traditional and modern classical repertoire, Lark regularly performs jazz as well as bluegrass and Appalachian music—natural extensions of her upbringing in the Bluegrass State.

Lark’s collaborator on this program is pianist Andrew Armstrong, a longtime collaborator with violinist James Ehnes. In addition to his superb collaborative work, Armstrong has a robust schedule of solo recital and chamber music appearances annually. He has two solo recordings to his credit and performs a wide repertoire of more than 50 concertos with orchestras in major venues around the world.

Tickets to Tessa Lark and Andrew Armstrong at Oberlin are $35 ($30 for seniors, military, and Oberlin staff and alumni, and $10 for students), available by calling 800-371-0178, online at oberlin.edu/artsguide, or by visiting Central Ticket Service (in Hall Auditorium, 67 N. Main St.) Monday through Friday from noon to 5 p.m.

Lark’s Oberlin performance replaces a previously scheduled appearance by violist Lawrence Power, also on November 19. Tickets for that show will be honored at Finney Chapel on the day of Lark’s recital or may be exchanged at Central Ticket Service.

For a complete Artist Recital Series schedule and more information about the arts at Oberlin, please visit oberlin.edu/artsguide.