Oberlin Conservatory News: Fall 1999

SENIOR THOMAS ROSENKRANZ WINS THREE PIANO COMPETITIONS AND EMBARKS ON CONCERT TOUR

THOMAS ROSENKRANZ (BM '99), pianist from San Diego, California, student of Robert Shannon, professor of pianoforte, won the MTNA Young Chang Collegiate Piano Competition at its third and final round, held in Los Angeles last March. The Music Teachers National Association award includes a $2000 prize, a Young Chang grand piano and national performances in the coming year. Rosenkranz also recently was awarded the Conservatory's Arthur Dann award, which provides funding for concerts outside of Oberlin.

STEPHANIE BURGIS WINS FULBRIGHT GRANT FOR 1999-2000 STUDY IN VIENNA

Burgis photo STEPHANIE BURGIS (BM '99), a music history/horn performance major from East Lansing, Michigan, received a Fulbright grant for teaching and study in Vienna during the 1999-2000 school year. The Fulbright grant allows Burgis to study part-time at the University of Vienna and teach part-time as an English teaching assistant at a Viennese high school. At Oberlin Burgis studied french horn with David Brockett, assistant professor of horn. Her advisor was Claudia McDonald, associate professor of musicology.

Winning the Fulbright, says Burgis, is a great excuse to return to Vienna. "I spent five months studying in Vienna with the Oberlin Study Abroad program in 1998. Vienna is such a beautiful city, brimming with art and culture. On any given night you can attend at least four incredible classical music concerts. While there, I saw an entire "Ring" cycle and more operas than I've ever seen in my life. I found the music scene in Vienna more vibrant than it is here -- the people accept music and art as a part of their lives, not as museum pieces."

NICHOLAS BAUMGARTNER TO INVESTIGATE CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN BACH INTERPRETATION ON A WATSON FELLOWSHIP

NICHOLAS BAUMGARTNER (BM, BA '99), a double major in piano performance and German, is spending the year in Europe as the recipient of a 1999 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Baumgartner, a student of Peter Takács, professor of pianoforte, is one of 60 graduates from 49 of America's top liberal arts colleges to receive $22,000 from the Watson foundation for study and travel in Europe this year. Each will explore a topic of his or her choosing on what the foundation calls a "wanderjahr" outside the United States. More than 1000 students applied to the first round of the selection. Baumgartner's advisors include Steven Huff, chair of the Russian and German department and Steven Plank, professor of musicology. Baumgartner has plans to travel to the

United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands, where he will interview performers and musicologists who specialize in the music of J.S. Bach. *

PIANIST SPENCER MYER WINS GRAND PRIZE IN AKRON-BASED COMPETITION AND NAMED ONE OF FIVE FINALISTS FOR THE AMERICAN PIANISTS ASSOCIATION FELLOWSHIP

Pianist SPENCER MYER, student of Peter Takács, finished his junior year at Oberlin by winning the Grand Prize at the final round of the Tuesday Musical Club Young Artists Group Scholarship Competition, held in Akron last May. The Tuesday Musical Club sponsors a scholarship competition every year for student singers, pianists and instrumentalists. After winning first place in the piano division during the competition's preliminary round, Myer competed for the Club's Grand Prize -- an award of $2,000 -- with all of the other first and second place winners from each category. Myer has also been named one of five finalists for the American Pianists Association Classical Fellowship Awards. That competition, in the form of a "festival week," will be held in April.

DANIEL PAGET RECEIVES PREMIERE YOUNG ARTIST AWARD FROM CLEVELAND OPERA

DANIEL PAGET (BM, BS '99) from New York City, student of Gerald Crawford, recently won the Belle O. Morse Young Artist Award from the Cleveland Opera. Paget is the first recipient of this award, which was established this year to honor and help young opera singers on their way towards a professional operatic career. The Morse Award funded Paget's March performance of the Ballad Singer in Cleveland Opera's production of Carlyle Floyd's opera, "Of Mice and Men." Floyd attended the production, with Anton Coppolla (who conducted the work's premiere performance) at the podium. Paget currently studies with William McGraw as a masters degree student at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music.

LAURIE RUBIN CHOSEN TO PERFORM AT WHITE HOUSE IN WASHINGTON, D.C.; WINS FIRST PLACE IN CONCERTO COMPETITION; AND IS AWARDED A FELLOWSHIP TO THE ASPEN VOCAL CHAMBER MUSIC PROGRAM

On October 16, LAURIE RUBIN, a junior vocal performance major from Los Angeles, California, student of Richard Miller, performed at the White House in Washington, D.C., as a representative of the Very Special Arts. Rubin's performance was part of Handicap Awareness Month; she is a mezzo-soprano who happens to have been born blind. While at the White House, she participated in a panel discussion focused on the needs and challenges for people with disabilities. Rubin also tied for first place in the Brentwood-Westwood Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition in Brentwood, California. She performed with that orchestra last May. In March, Rubin performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as a featured guest of the Very Special Arts-sponsored Young Soloists 15^thAnniversary Concert. (Rubin received the group's Young Soloist Award in 1997.)

This summer Rubin received a fellowship to the Aspen Vocal Chamber Music Program, where she performed the Neue Liebeslieder Waltzer by Brahms, the Blake Songs for voice and oboe by Vaughan Williams, "Chanson Perpetuelle," and Sechs Deutches Lieder for voice, clarinet, and piano by Louis Spohr.

HUANG RUO RECEIVES AWARDS FROM THE AMERICAN MUSIC CENTER AND ASCAP

SENIOR COMPOSITION major Huang Ruo received two awards this summer. He received an award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and another from The American Music Center, both located in New York City. The American Music Center's Margaret Fairbank Jory Copying Assistance Program award will be used to copy parts of Huang's scores titled "Prelude for Orchestra" and "Fanfare for Orchestra."

THREE PROFS RECEIVE ASCAP AWARDS

WENDELL LOGAN, professor of African-American music; Thomas Lopez, visiting instructor in computer music and new music technology; and Anna Rubin, assistant professor of music composition, have received 1999-2000 awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). "The cash awards," says Marilyn Bergman, president and chair of the ASCAP board, "reflect our continuing commitment to assist and encourage writers of serious music. They are granted by an independent panel and are based upon the unique prestige value of each writer's catalog of original compositions as well as recent performances of those works in areas not surveyed by the society."

1999 OBERLIN PIANO COMPETITION NAMES WINNERS

The 1999 OBERLIN PIANO Competition took place during the final week of July. 30 young pianists, aged 13-18, competed for a prize fund of $5,000. A panel of judges including Oberlin piano professors Peter Takács, Monique Duphil and Sanford Margolis, with guest judge Yoheved Kaplinsky from the Juilliard School, awarded the following prizes:

1^st PRIZE ($3,000) to Yeolum Son (13) of South Korea

2^nd PRIZE ($1,500) to Marko Pavlovic of Yugoslavia

3^rd PRIZE ($500) to Hye Yem Park of South Korea.

Other finalists were Daniel Spiegel, Jeannette Fang and Cecilia Yudha.