Oberlin Studio Recital "Fall 2021"
The normal calendar was re-jiggered at Oberlin this school year to accommodate pandemic-management efforts, so our Fall semester dragged over the holidays and, for the first time, ended in January. (Thus, the quotation marks on the title of this post: Normally this recital takes place in December.) Each member of the studio plays a group of pieces representative of the work they did during the semester for this public concert, in lieu of playing a “jury” for me alone. Dovetailing with my desire to keep the program performance-focussed, it has always seemed more useful to have the students play their music for an audience than for just me, taking notes, in a classroom.
The program was marathon-long, yielding more than one request to make it shorter next time. We’ll see… Here are some photos of the students mid-performance, playing in one of our favorite on-campus spaces, the historic Fairchild Chapel. With sixty foot ceilings, thick stone block walls and stained glass behind the performers, it is both a beautiful and a beautiful-sounding room. The full program is reproduced at the end of the post.
Our first performer, Nik Divall, having played a full recital already in October, played a short set of three Barrios works:
Next up was Rio Manzanares, with pieces by Dowland, Bach and Pujol:
Josie Stone followed, with pieces by Bach, Giuliani and Carlevaro:
After a short intermission, Suvan Agarwal led off, with works by Bach and Barrios:
Next up, Damian Goggans played works by Giuliani and Pujol:
Finally, Caeli Massey closed our robust concert program with pieces by Anido, Presti and Tarrega:
With about thirty in the audience—not a bad turnout in the week before finals—and the glorious echo of the room, applause was thunderous. There was some socializing at the Feve afterwards, in the manner of pre-pandemic traditions and, while the entire gang wasn’t there, it was a reminder of normalcy much appreciated. Congratulations, all, on fine performances! The full program follows.
