 |
 |
|
Please send comments,
questions, and suggestions
about Oberlin Online news
and feature articles to
online.news@oberlin.edu.
STEVEN SMITH, ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR OF THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA, TO JOIN OBERLIN CONSERVATORY FACULTY
MAY 23, 2002-- Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra Steven Smith is joining the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College.
Robert K. Dodson, dean of the Conservatory, announced that Smith would
be visiting associate
professor of conducting and music director of the Oberlin Conservatory
orchestras effective July 1, 2002.
"I am very pleased that Steven Smith has agreed to join our faculty,"
says Dodson. "His experience with professional musicians of the highest
caliber --as well as emerging musicians -- prepares him wonderfully for
leading the Oberlin Conservatory's orchestral program. We are delighted
to welcome him."
Smith has been The Cleveland Orchestra's assistant conductor for the last
five seasons, helping to plan and conduct educational and family concerts
as well as assisting Music Director Christoph von Dohnányi in preparing
the orchestra's winter concerts, acting as a cover conductor, and helping
to oversee the production of broadcasts for The Cleveland Orchestra Radio
Network. He also appears as conductor for concerts on the orchestra's
subscription series, at the Blossom Festival, and on the Christmas programs.
His conducting has garnered admiration from music critic Donald Rosenberg,
author of a book on The Cleveland Orchestra. Writing in The Plain Dealer,
Rosenberg praised Smith's leadership of the orchestra in Shostakovich's
Symphony No. 5: "[He] led a gripping, authoritative performance that
beautifully conveyed the score's uncompromising personality. . . . Smith's
concept gave a brilliant and clear idea of what the composer had in mind,
and the orchestra provided playing of consummate elegance, tonal depth,
and bold intensity."
This summer, Smith will conduct two concerts with The Cleveland Orchestra
at Blossom Music Center -- an all-Mozart offering on July 20 and, on July
21, an evening of arias, French cabaret songs, and divertissement
featuring mezzo-soprano Susan Graham. Earlier in the month, on July 10,
he will conduct the Aspen Concert Orchestra at the Aspen Music Festival.
Throughout the fall and winter season he will continue to conduct The
Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, and the
Santa Fe Symphony; he serves as music director of the latter two ensembles.
The Oberlin Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College, founded in 1865,
is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States
and the only major music school in the country linked with a preeminent
college of arts and sciences.
The Oberlin Orchestra and the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra follow a demanding
schedule of six hours of rehearsal per week and concerts every three to
four weeks, through which students are exposed to a cross-section of orchestral
literature. Both orchestras perform well-known works from the standard
repertoire for orchestra as well as less familiar literature, from the
baroque to the contemporary. Student soloists selected through an annual
concerto competition are featured regularly, as are faculty soloists.
Both orchestras collaborate regularly with the Oberlin Opera Theater and
the Conservatory's larger choral ensembles. In recent years, guest conductors
have included the late Robert Shaw (music director emeritus of the Atlanta
Symphony Orchestra), Michael Morgan '79 (music director of the Oakland
East Bay Symphony), Catherine Comet (Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra),
violinist and conductor Oscar Shumsky, and composer John Williams. In
October of 2000 the Oberlin Orchestra traveled to the Getty Center in
Los Angeles to perform under the baton of Maestro Williams.
Select concerts featuring Oberlin ensembles are broadcast live on Cleveland's
classical music radio station, WCLV.
Media Contact: Marci Janas
       |