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
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