Concerts of New Student Works at Oberlin are always something to talk about. Whether it is the buzz over a broken piano lid, or last year's incident of on-stage fellatio, the concerts that premiere the compositions of Oberlin students are not to be missed. The New Student Works concert this Wednesday was no exception and the new pieces last night set the standard for the semester to come.
The first piece of the evening, senior David Matthew's "R�ckblick," was for full orchestra, and consisted solely of sustained chords that changed by increasingly large intervals of time with no other form of meter or rhythm. Though the piece offered some interesting orchestration between the strings and keyboard instruments, its minimalist ideas seemed somewhat outdated, and in the end it left more the impression of an orchestration exercise than a succinct piece for orchestra.
The nearby hamlet of Elyria, Ohio, served as the artistic inspiration for sophomore Vin Calliano's "Elyria-O."
"I fucking hate Elyria. It is dry and grim, there is no energy and nothing interesting to do there. But there is something attractive about it nonetheless," commented Calliano on the seemingly bland subject matter.
In the work's three movements (I. My heart pours out to you, Elyria, oh my soul, II. Ho-down, and III. Hymn), Calliano's work ranged from the absurd and humorous to the truly beautiful and displayed a maturity in conceptual design and compositional range seldom heard at New Music Concerts. The bass playing throughout was well written and performed.
The Ho-down movement, featuring sophomore David Reminick on the banjo, went from one classic bluegrass tune to the next, constantly moving through interesting arrangements and variations (including one called "nice glasses, sonny") and building to an Elyria-style dueling piano cadenza.
But after "Elyria-O" Calliano was still not done. Later in the concert, the collaboration between sophomore Du Yun and Calliano, titled "Posterized Parachute Polka" for solo piano, was manic and dissonant work, written for Du Yun's 21st birthday. Though the high-ups in the conservatory may never forgive Calliano for the unforgivable (though reparable) damage he caused to one of the school's Steinways last semester, Calliano's music itself should be the center of attention. It is sophisticated without being unapproachable, humorous and yet serious, creative and dynamic.
The next two works were both for tape. Junior Katherine Miller described her piece, "Rock On," as a chance to hear "the little voices in one's head that pull one up and down through bipolar cycles..." The manipulated samples of voice and piano were handled with a high degree of taste with regard to texture, and were very interesting. "Rock On" developed through different sections and gradually led to an incredibly engaging final resolution to the work.
The full-sounding conclusion of "Rock On" led immediately to first-year Joel Corelitz's "Feel," for synthesizers and sampled soprano saxophone. The fusion of electric and acoustic instruments was well balanced and the overall composition was professional sounding. Corelitz categorized the work as "light drum and bass," a genre in which it is difficult to create original sounding music. Though the piece may have left the high-brow art music auditor slightly dissatisfied with the lightness of its content, what it lacked in originality was made up for in feel.
The program lagged with the next two works. First-year Noah Kaufman's satiric tribute to the broken heart began the second half of the program. Scored for soprano, horn, violin and piano, the piece meandered from section to section without any discernible structure. Though it was solidly performed, with the notable talents of first-year soprano Claire Thompson, the work lacked continuity and the blur from one section to the next grew tiring.
Another disappointment came with sophomore Margot Bevington's work, "In the Beam," for a septet of piano, cello, three percussionists, spoken text, and dancer.
The program notes on the piece mention that it was inspired by performance artist Karen Finley, and unfortunately it shared many of the performance problems that Finley herself had.
It was muddled with standard "artsy" clutter that expressed little of anything. The text around which the piece was written was repetitious and nonsensical, and full of clich�d wackiness that, while trying to make the piece complex, made it ridiculous. The addition of a dancer, who basically spun around slowly in place raising and lowering her arms, proved only to be distracting. In the end any statement that "In the Beam" hoped to make was lost in the clutter.
First-year Mark Agrusti's "Ballad for a Sink in a Large Kitchen" was a refreshing end to the concert. The work, built almost entirely on 47 samples of water drips, was highly percussive and strangely melodic, and Agrusti achieved his goal of creating a "whimsical, atonal ballad" with an excellent sense of pacing.
New Student Works concerts are consistently a circus of last minute preparations and unexpected surprise. Even though this concert featured no splintering piano lids, the surprise of the evening was the diversity and substance the program had to offer, displaying some of the finest student works premiered this year.
Copyright © 1998, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 127, Number 15, February 26, 1999
Contact us with your comments and suggestions.