New Music Ensemble eighth blackbird, Trained at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Wins Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance

OBERLIN, OHIO (February 11, 2008) – Eighth blackbird, the fearless (and lower-cased) new music ensemble born and bred at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music a dozen years ago, won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance for Strange Imaginary Animals , its fifth recording. This is the first Grammy nomination for eighth blackbird, its fourth release on the Chicago-based Cedille Records label, and the only new music nominee in the category. The awards were announced February 10, 2008, by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

A track from Strange Imaginary Animals, Jennifer Higdon's Zaka , received a nomination for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. Other works on the recording are David M. Gordon's Friction Systems, Gordon Fitzell's violence and evanescence , Steve Mackey's Indigenous Instruments , and strange imaginary remix by composer Dennis DeSantis.

Strange Imaginary Animals also received recognition in the Classical Producer of the Year category; Judith Sherman won a Grammy for her work on this album and on recordings by Rachel Barton Pine and Matthew Hagle; Rick Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra; and the Kronos and Ying quartets.

The New Yorker has described eighth blackbird as "friendly, unpretentious, idealistic, and highly skilled." Its members are flutist Tim Munro '02; clarinetist Michael J. Maccaferri '95; violinist and violist Matt Albert '96; cellist Nicholas Photinos '96; percussionist Matthew Duvall '95; and pianist Lisa Kaplan '96.

Oberlin Associate Professor of Conducting and Ruth Strickland Gardner Professor of Music Timothy Weiss is widely recognized for having mentored the group during its salad days. "I am absolutely ecstatic," he says of their Grammy win. "I think it's just fantastic for them."

That an album of contemporary classical music triumphed over more standard repertoire (recordings of Saint-Saëns and Tchaikovsky, for example) demonstrates, Weiss says, "their remarkably high level of contemporary music playing and their ability to connect with a wide audience."

Information about eighth blackbird is available on its web site: www.eighthblackbird.com.

Also nominated for a Grammy Award was conductor Robert Spano '83, music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO), for Best Orchestra Performance for the ASO's Telarc release of works by Vaughan Williams, including Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. With the ASO, Spano has won five Grammys.

The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, founded in 1865 and situated amid the intellectual vitality of Oberlin College since 1867, is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. The Conservatory is internationally renowned as a professional music school of the highest caliber and has been pronounced a "national treasure" by the Washington Post .

Oberlin alumni have gone on to achieve illustrious careers in all aspects of the serious music world. Many of them have attained stature as solo performers, composers, and conductors, among them Jennifer Koh, Steven Isserlis, Denyce Graves, Franco Farina, Christopher Robertson, Lisa Saffer, George Walker, Christopher Rouse, David Zinman, and Robert Spano. All of the members of the contemporary sextet eighth blackbird, most of the members of the International Contemporary Ensemble, and many of the members of Apollo's Fire are Oberlin alumni. The Miró, Pacifica, Juilliard, and Fry Street quartets, among other chamber ensembles, include Oberlin-trained musicians, as do major orchestras and opera companies throughout the world.