Arts Briefs

SASA Celebrates Heritage

The South Asian Students’ Association (SASA) proudly presents its ninth annual show, “Mizaaj: Expressions of South Asians,” on Friday. This year the students have produced a kaleidoscopic show, including classical dance, music, folk dance, contemporary dances, singing and poetry. SASA members organized this event as a way of introducing South Asian culture to the entire Oberlin community.
Sophomores Cindy Lee and Ahsan Tanyeer and junior Shahir Ahmed are chairing this year’s show. About 25 South Asian students and allies have dedicated numerous hours towards the production.
As a way to connect to the South Asian community outside of Oberlin, the association is donating all proceeds to Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), a New York based non-profit organization. DRUM has been crucial in the lives of South Asians, especially those detained by the government, after 9/11. SASA feels the importance of supporting this organization as post 9/11 issues still persist. Though all cultures and people within the vast diaspora cannot be equally represented, it is still an attempt to represent as much of the rich heritage as possible.

—Shruti Sasidharan

Electronica Festival Converges on Oberlin

OCEAn, Ohio Community of Electro-Acoustic, will make waves again with its biennial festival of new music next Friday in Kulas Hall. Featuring 40 composers from Ohio, the concert will showcase a wide variety of multimedia work: video and dance collaborations, music composed in Real-Time on a laptop computer and duets between computers and traditional performers on flute, violin, saxophone and percussion, with works by Professor Tom Lopez, HyeKyung Lee, John Morrison and Mark Phillips.
Kulas Recital Hall. Friday, November 15th, 8 p.m. Free.

—KA

Fall Forward Dances Through a Century of Styles

The Fall Forward concert this weekend will compress 100 years of dance into a two-hour long program. With works created and performed by students and faculty, the "six-piece show presents themes in dance forms from modern and contemporary to jazz and even flamenco," Faculty advisor to Fall Forward Elesa Rosasco said. The concert features pieces by first-year Brianna Rego, senior Ashelye Smith, sophomore Jan-Margaret Llorens, alumna Susan Van Pelt and performances by visiting professor Kristin Horrigan, junior Kala Hildebrand and senior Loren Groenendaal.
Warner Center, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. $3 OCID and senior citizens, $5 public. Ticket locations at CTS, Wilder front desk or at the door. All tickets $2 more at the door.

—KA

Spotlight on German-Turkish Writers This Weekend

Sometimes we forget that America isn’t the only nation with a strong minority base. On Saturday afternoon, professor Leslie Adelson from Cornell University will highlight the diversity of another country — Germany — in his lecture, titled "Remember the Future: The Turkish Turn in Contemporary German Literature." Focusing on the literature and essays of the two most prominent German-Turkish authors, Emine Sevgi Ozdamar and Zafer Senocak, Adelson will discuss how the Turkish migration into Germany has profoundly influenced the country’s literature and future. A reception will follow the talk.
German House Lounge. Saturday, 4:30 p.m. Free.
—KA

Talented Young Musician to Show Her Stuff at Finney

Songstress Erin McKeown will bring her layered tapestry of folk, jazz and blues to Finney Chapel on Saturday night. Fresh out of college, McKeown has already generated a stir in the indie rock world with the release of her second album, Distillation. Tom Schulte of All Music Guide calls the young musician "a mirror that reflects all [of her influences] in new form." While singing with her three-piece band, McKeown will also work her fingers on the banjo, guitar, bass and mandolin.
Finney. Saturday, 8 p.m. $4 OCID, $8 public. Ticket Locations at CTS, Wilder front desk or at the door.

—KA

Pianist Ursula Oppens to Perform Contemporary Music

The Contemporary Music Ensemble will meet one of modern music’s biggest stars when they perform with pianist Ursula Oppens in concert this weekend. For the ensemble, this will be their second concert of the academic year. They will undertake experimental composer Gyorgy Ligeti’s “Concerto for Piano” with Oppens, as well as Ligeti’s “Ramifications” for 12 solo strings and William Russell’s “Chicago Sketches,” featuring the Oberlin Percussion Group, led by Professor of Percussion Michael Rosen.

Pianist Oppens has appeared in recent years on the faculty of the Tanglewood Music Festival, with the Los Angeles Symphony at the Hollywood Bowl, in Carnegie Hall, and with the Juilliard String Quartet. Throughout the years, she has concretized with the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra and many of the country’s prominent symphonies. She is currently the John Evans Professor of Music at Northwestern University though she resides in New York City.
Finney. Sunday, Nov. 10, 8 p.m. Free.
—DD

Bartered Bride Visits Oberlin

Oberlin Opera Theater will bring a spirited sense of adventure to 19th-century Czech composer Bedrich Smetana’s most famous opera The Bartered Bride next week in Hall Auditorium. This opera, sometimes dubbed the "Czech National Opera" because of it’s rich use of nationalistic folk tunes and melodies, will feature Conservatory faculty Steven Smith as conductor and Assistant Professor of Opera Theater, Jonathon Field, as director.
Following the goings-on of a wedding proposal during a village festival in Bohemia, the story is replete with a usual array of operatic twists, finally leaving everyone in the village in good spirits by the time the night is out.
Hall Auditorium. Wed., Fri. and Sat., Nov. 13, 15 and 16, 8 p.m., and Sun., Nov. 17 at 2 p.m.
—DD

TIMARA Brainchild Lectures in Kulas

For TIMARA students, the experience was like meeting George Washington. Olly Wilson, Professor of Composition at University of California-Berkeley, and former Oberlin faculty, lectured about his music to a packed classroom in Bibbins last Wednesday. The grandfather of the Technology in Music and Related Arts program, Wilson reminisced about his five years at Oberlin (’65-’70), chatting causally with the audience about his Underground Railroad-era home, his time at the Con and his children, who began their schooling in the Oberlin Public School system.

Wilson then moved into an overview of his music, beginning with a piece for full orchestra commissioned by Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony that he composed soon after leaving Oberlin. Titled “Sinfonia,” Wilson explained that the first movement of this work relies on a simple two-note pattern of B to B-flat which then ascends chromatically and is combined into cells on four or five notes which continue to expand until the close of the movement. The 2nd movement was an “Elegy,” much more linear melodically than most of Wilson’s work, and written in memory of his father.

The next work he presented, labeled “Vision and Truth” was a collection of spirituals he arranged for bass voice and chamber ensemble with jazz riffs and motifs. He concluded with a recent work, “Episodes,” premiered last year by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, in
which competing phrases of melody jockey for position, coming together finally in the end.
—DD