News

John Lewis Talks Jazz

January 24, 2023

Oberlin Alumni Magazine

John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet talks jazz and more in a 1956 radio interview with Jim Neumann ’58, host of “Jazz Hot and Cool!” on WOBC.
Collage of jazz album covers.

Meet Joe Smith

January 24, 2023

Oberlin Alumni Magazine Staff

Joe Smith ’86 learned to meet people through his love of photography. As an Oberlin student in the 1980s, he took hundreds of images that capture—through mostly straight-ahead portraits—the look of an era, and sometimes more.
Self portrait in a mirror using a 35 mm camera (black & white).

On the Record with Rhiannon Giddens ’00

January 24, 2023

Oberlin Alumni Magazine

Rhiannon Giddens began 2022 with a starring role in Porgy and Bess, the iconic Gershwin opera often criticized for its derogatory depictions of Black characters. The widely hailed production...
Seated in comfortable chairs, Rhiannon and a writer speak. The writer is taking notes.

Rhiannon Giddens’ American Tunes

January 24, 2023

Jeff Hagan ’86

A 2000 graduate of Oberlin, Giddens was trained as an opera singer under Marlene Rosen, and so the opera part is easy to understand. But it was after she returned home to North Carolina that she took...
Giddens sings emotively.

Still Hot, Still Cool

January 24, 2023

Erich Burnett

To some, jazz signaled a decadent departure from the European masters who had inspired the work of conservatory faculty and students for more than a century. But there were also students smitten by...
Neumann holds an LP, Dizzy in Greece. Behind him is an endless shelf filled to the ceiling with labelled boxes.

Renovations to Historic Wilder Hall Beginning in January

January 12, 2023

Office of Communications

A multi-year capital improvement plan to upgrade Oberlin’s Student Union is officially underway, with work beginning during Winter Term 2023. Wilder Hall, designed by Chicago architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee—designer of the Memorial Arch on Tappan Square—opened in 1911 as a men’s dormitory. In addition to providing housing for undergraduate men, the building was conceived as a meeting and performance place, and has evolved over time into Oberlin’s Student Union.
Front exterior view of Wilder Hall

Peter Takács Begins Three Concert Series of Beethoven’s Complete Violin Sonatas

December 9, 2022

Cathy Partlow Strauss ’84

Oberlin piano professor and avowed Beethoven devotee Peter Takács will be bringing the composer’s 10 violin sonatas to Kulas Recital Hall over the course of three concerts this academic year. The first edition, on Sunday, December 11, features three violinists on Oberlin’s faculty—Sibbi Bernhardsson and Verona Quartet violinists Jonathan Ong and Dorothy Ro—and guest artist Daniel Stepner.
man with glasses wearing a dark suite sits at the piano

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