The Oberlin in Italy Program Celebrates 20 Years of Music, Language, and Culture Studies in a New Home Under the Tuscan Sun

OBERLIN, OHIO (February 4, 2008) –This year the Oberlin Conservatory of Music is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its Oberlin in Italy summer program in a new home –the town of Arezzo, in the heart of Tuscany. The five-week intensive language and musical study program begins June 7 and concludes July 11, 2008. Excursions to Florence and Siena are included.

Since 1988, the Oberlin in Italy program has attracted singers, pianists, instrumentalists, and liberal arts students from all over the world for an enriching experience that combines intensive language and musical study with an immersion into Italian culture. The program, which was formerly held in Urbania, is open to more than 80 young artists who are college age and older, and students can earn up to seven Oberlin College credits.

"This is an opportunity of a lifetime for singers, musicians, and linguists to delve deeply into Italian language and culture, and to hone their knowledge of style and traditions," says Daune Mahy, Professor of Singing at the Conservatory and Director of the Oberlin in Italy program. "Outstanding faculty from our Conservatory will be teaching: Bridget-Michaele Reischl, Music Director of the Oberlin Orchestras and Associate Professor of Conducting; Marlene Ralis Rosen, Professor of Voice; Salvatore Champagne, Associate Professor of Singing; Milan Vitek, Professor of Violin; and Roland Pandolfi, Professor of Horn. They will be joined by exceptional coaches from the Curtis Institute of Music, Copenhagen's Royal Academy, and La Scala."

Mahy founded the Oberlin in Italy program with Gerald Crawford, Director of the Division of Vocal Studies and Professor of Singing at the Conservatory. After the two spent a month studying at the Centro Studi Italiani, the Italian language school in Urbania, Italy, they realized that most intensive language-study programs do not offer vocal coaching, and believed that such a combination would be invaluable for young singers. As a result, Oberlin in Italy was born.

The program offers singing, piano, instrumental, liberal arts, and theater production. Singers are placed in one of three divisions: opera, which will feature four performances (double cast) of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro; the concert group, in which eight advanced singers will present programs of arias and duets in various Tuscany venues; and opera studio, which will concentrate on performing Cavalli's L'Egisto. Voice instructors include the Conservatory's Champagne, Rosen, and Mahy.

Reischl will conduct Figaro, while noted Metropolitan Opera singer Edward Crafts will serve as stage director of the Main Stage Opera.

Instrumentalists will participate in a chamber music program for an intensive three-week course that culminates in a series of concerts in various venues throughout the region. Professors Vitek and Pandolfi will direct this area of study. Danielle Orlando of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Academy of Vocal Arts and Umberto Finazzi of Milan's legendary Teatro alla Scala will direct the accompaniment program. The liberal arts component will focus on intensive language study, and the theater production program will offer study in production preparation and technology with acclaimed designer Peter Hauser.

Additionally, each participant will receive 17 hours of Italian language instruction each week.

An audition and an admission screening are required as part of the application process. For more information about the program, contact Administrative Director Anna Hoffmann at (440) 775-804 or send an e-mail at ocitaly@oberlin.edu . Applications are available on the Oberlin in Italy website at www.oberlin.edu/con/summer/italy . The deadline to apply is February 8, 2008.

Oberlin in Italy Alumni

Many Oberlin students who have participated in the Oberlin in Italy program have been accepted by important operatic apprentice programs and have gone on to perform at major opera houses. Soprano Alyson Cambridge (OC '02) attended Oberlin in Italy in 1999. She won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions a year after graduating from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, is an alumna of the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and has had singing roles with the Met Opera, Washington National Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, and Opera Theater of St. Louis. This spring Cambridge makes her debut with Atlanta Opera as Susanna in Le Nozze de Figaro.

Another soprano, Ellie Dehn (OC '02), attended in 2000. She was a recipient of a $10,000 George London Award in 2007, a prestigious prize for young singers. Dehn has also performed at the Met (this season she sings the role of Mrs. Naidoo in Philip Glass's Satyagraha ) and a recent Opera News profile called her "one of the young singers to watch on the current scene."

Arezzo

"Arezzo is an ideal place for study," says Professor of Singing Daune Mahy. "It has a long history of artistic endeavor and is a vivacious city. Tuscany itself is full of extraordinary opera houses and venues for performances."

A dazzling city located atop a steep hill overlooking the floodplain of the Arno River, Arezzo is on the main railway line connecting Milan and Venice in the north with Rome and Naples in the south. It offers easy access to the main cultural centers in central Italy. The town has a gilded pedigree: it is the birthplace of renowned Italian artists, poets, and musicians, including Michelangelo, Petrarch, and, most important to music lovers, Guido, who invented music notation in the 11th century. Arezzo is replete with Gothic and Romanesque cathedrals, towers and palaces, as well as a 15th-century Medicean fortress and medieval town square. Cinema buffs might find some of the town sites familiar, as Roberto Benigni's 1997 movie, La vita e bella ( Life Is Beautiful ), was filmed here.

Oberlin and International Study

Oberlin encourages all students, regardless of their major, to broaden their liberal arts experience through study-abroad programs that provide cultural immersion, high academic standards, and, if appropriate, intensive language programs. Each semester, about 150 Oberlin students participate in study away programs.

In addition to the nearly 80 programs affiliated with the College, Oberlin offers four of its own programs: Oberlin in Italy, the Danenberg Oberlin-in-London program, Studies in Spain at the University of Córdoba, and Oberlin-in-Europe.

The Oberlin Conservatory of Music

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. In chamber music, the Miró, Pacifica, Juilliard, and Fry Street quartets, among other small ensembles, include Oberlin-trained musicians, who perform with major orchestras and opera companies throughout the world.

For more information about Oberlin, please visit www.oberlin.edu/con.

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Media Contact:

Marci Janas
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