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VIOLINIST GREGORY FULKERSON, OF OBERLIN CONSERVATORY FACULTY, TO PERFORM AT MERKIN CONCERT HALL IN NEW YORK CITY
Program Includes Composition by Oberlin Alumnus and Features Oberlin Student Ensemble
MARCH 8, 2001--Renowned violinist Gregory Fulkerson, a professor of violin at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, will present a program of new music at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City on Monday, March 26, at 8 P.M.
He has long been active in the commissioning, performance and recording of works by prominent American composers; all works on the program were either written for Fulkerson or commissioned by him, and all but one will receive New York premieres. Joining him on the program is pianist Charles Abramovic, and, conducted by Oberlin Conservatory Professor of Percussion Michael Rosen, the Oberlin Percussion Group.
Oberlin alumnus David Schober '96 is one composer whose work, Empty Shells, will receive its New York premiere. Other composers represented on the program are Richard Wernick (Sonata for Violin and Piano), Donald Erb (Sonata for Solo Violin), Stacy Garrop (Neurotichotomy) and the original version of Michael Daugherty's 1986 Lex. Fulkerson, to whom Erb dedicated his Sonata, performs the work on the recording Sunlit Peaks and Dark Valleys (New World Records, 1997), a collection of Erb compositions.
This year, Fulkerson's Bridge recording, J. S. Bach: The Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin, made The New Yorker's short list, "Disks of Distinction." Russell Platt, writing in the January 15 issue of the magazine, says that Fulkerson "combines a thorough knowledge of early-music techniques with the generous warmth of the mainstream tradition, filtered through the attentive ears of a first-class new-music player." The recording has garnered enthusiastic reviews on the other side of the Atlantic, as well. England's Classic FM magazine lauds his "uncontainable energy and gloriously full-bodied sound . . . Fulkerson plays like a man possessed, taking the various technical hurdles in his stride, vividly communicating the genius of this extraordinary music."
Fulkerson has distinguished himself in a broad spectrum of musical activities. Since winning first prize in the 1980 International American Music Competition, he has performed more than 35 different concerti with orchestra including New York appearances with the Philadelphia and American Symphony Orchestras.
In 1992 he performed the role of Einstein in a world tour revival of Philip Glass's landmark "Einstein on the Beach"-- he also recorded the work for the Nonesuch label. His CD set of the violin Sonatas of Charles Ives on the Bridge label has become the standard version of those works.
Fulkerson holds two undergraduate degrees from Oberlin in 1971--a bachelor of music degree in violin performance and a bachelor of art degree, with honors, in mathematics. He also holds the M.M. (1979) and the D.M.A. (1987) from Juilliard. Among those with whom he has studied violin are Ivan Galamian, Paul Kling, Daniel Majeske and Dorothy DeLay.
The Oberlin Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College, founded in 1865, is the nation's oldest continuously operating conservatory, and the only major music school in the country linked with a preeminent college of arts and sciences. The Conservatory offers majors in performance, composition, music education, music theory, electronic and computer music, jazz studies, music history, and a double major in piano performance and vocal accompanying. There are more than 400 public concerts on campus each year--most of them free--including performances by student ensembles, faculty members, and performances and master classes by guest artists.
Media Contact: Marci Janas
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