Oberlin College and Conservatory

Contemporary Music Ensemble: Timothy Weiss, conductor

Friday, March 6, 2015 at 8:00pm to 10:00pm

Warner Concert Hall
77 West College Street, Oberlin, OH 44074

Watch the webcast! This event will be streamed live at the time of the event.

A performance by the Contemporary Music Ensemble, Timothy Weiss, conductor with guests Alice Teyssier ’06, soprano, David Bowlin ’00, violin, and Benjamin Roidl-Ward ’15, bassoon.

Program:

Sofia Gubaidulina: Concerto for bassoon and low strings (1975)

I

II

III

IV

V

Benjamin Roidl-Ward ’15, bassoon

–Pause–

Aaron Helgeson '04: Snow Requiem (2015) (World premiere)

Prologue (“Budeiesull Frå Brimisætra”)

January 12, 1888 — 6:00AM, 19°F, 24 mph

January 12, 1888 — 11:00AM, -2°F, 42 mph

January 12, 1888 — 2:00PM, -10°F, 60 mph

January 12, 1888 — 10:00PM, -17°F, 22 mph

January 13, 1888 — 6:00AM, -25°F, 3 mph (“Svein i' Sy Gårde”)

(movements performed continuously)

Alice Teyssier ’06, soprano, David Bowlin ’00, violin

–Pause–

Jonathan Harvey: Wheel of Emptiness (1997)

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Bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward is currently a senior at Oberlin, where he studies with George Sakakeeny. A native of Tacoma, WA, he previously studied with Francine Peterson for seven years in the Seattle area. At Oberlin, Ben has performed on tours to New York City’s World Financial Center with the Contemporary Music Ensemble (2012) and to Carnegie Hall with the Oberlin Orchestra (2013). He has also performed in the Kennedy Center’s Conservatory Project Series (2013), Oberlin’s Danenberg Honors Recital and Oakton Series, and as the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings’ Young Ensemble-in-Residence (2013-14) with his reed trio Third Rail. In January of 2015, Roidl-Ward toured with the string trio Chartreuse, presenting new works by living composers in concerts in Oberlin, Cleveland, Chicago, and New York City. Third prizewinner of the 2013 International Double Reed Society Young Artist Competition, Roidl-Ward has appeared as a soloist with the Seattle Symphony, the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, and several regional orchestras throughout the United States.

 

Flutist and lyric soprano Alice Teyssier ’06 brings “something new, something fresh, but also something uncommonly beautiful” to her performances. Hailed as possessing a voice with “unusual depth,” Teyssier’s mission is to share lesser-known masterpieces and develop a rich and vibrant repertoire that reflects our era. This season, she is on tour with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) to Washington, D.C., Nashville, Los Angeles, San Diego, and will be a mainstay of the group’s residency at the Ojai Festival.

Teyssier plays the music of Chaya Czernowin and Bernard Rands on Miller Theatre’s portrait concert series and returns to Monday Evening Concerts twice this season with music by Ramón Lazkano and Lewis Nielson. As a vocal soloist, she will join the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble in a new work by Aaron Helgeson and will be singing the role of Maddalena in Händel’s La Resurrezione with the Bach Collegium

A uniquely gifted advocate for new music, Teysseir seeks out collaborations with composers to develop unique and transcendent works for the flute and for the singing voice. She has given residencies for composers and performers of new music at such universities as Harvard, Leeds, Huddersfield, and SUNY- Buffalo. In 2008, Teyssier was “haunting” in the United States premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s opera Lost Highway, after the David Lynch film, at Columbia University’s Miller Theater; she has since presented modern operas by Viktor Ullman and Anthony Davis. 

Teyssier is also devoted to historically informed and technically sound performances of early music. She performs regularly with the Bach Collegium, San Diego, the Pacific Bach Project, and is a core member of the Musical Oratory. In Europe, her chamber ensemble La Perla Bizzarra was invited to the Händelfestspiel in Göttingen (Germany). In her choice of dramatic cantatas from the 17th and 18th centuries, Teysseir has been praised for her “dark, wide-ranging” voice and “expressive coloratura.”

The Australian-born musician has lived in France, the United States, and Germany and continues to perform on all continents. She has earned degrees from Oberlin Conservatory of Music (BM, MM Opera Theater), the Conservatoire de Strasbourg (Specialization Diploma), and is currently in the dissertation phase of the Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of California-San Diego, where she studies with Susan Narucki.

 

Violinist David Bowlin ’00 has won critical acclaim for his solo and chamber music performances from the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times, among numerous other sources. He is an accomplished performer of a broad range of repertoire, and has performed recitals and concertos across the United States. Among these are dozens of premieres, including the Weill Hall world premiere of Mahagoni, a violin concerto written for Bowlin by Austrian composer Alexandra Karastoyanova-Hermentin. Accolades include the 2007 Samuel Baron Prize from Stony Brook University and first prize in violin at the 2003 Washington International Competition. 

In 2007, Bowlin joined the violin faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, having previously taught at the Juilliard School as assistant to Ronald Copes. He has taught on the faculties of the Okemo Young Artist Program, the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, the Madeleine Island Chamber Music Camp, and the Mannes Beethoven Institute. He has given master classes at Stony Brook University, Cornell University, the North Carolina School for the Arts, Beijing’s Central Conservatory, the Music Institute of Chicago, and the Conservatorio de las Rosas in Morelia, Mexico. 

Bowlin is a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), which tours in the United States and abroad. He’s had educational residencies at New York University, Northwestern University, and other institutions. He is a member of the Oberlin Trio with conservatory faculty members Haewon Song and Amir Eldan, and is a former member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, whose recording of music by Chinary Ung was named one of NPR’s Top 5 Best American Classical Albums of the year in 2010. 

Bowlin’s extensive chamber music performances include concerts in New York at Weill Recital Hall, Zankel Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd St. Y, Bargemusic, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Merkin Concert Hall, Miller Theater, and Symphony Space. He has performed and recorded with members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, as well as toured in major East Coast cities with Musicians from Marlboro. Recording credits include works of Stravinsky, Webern, Xenakis, Roger Sessions, George Crumb, Huang Ruo, Chinary Ung, Ursula Mamlok, Du Yun, Su Lian Tan, and others for the Bridge, Naxos, New Focus, Arsis, and Mode labels.

Bowlin is also artistic director of Chamber Music Quad-Cities, an organization that brings chamber music performances to the community in eastern Iowa and western Illinois where Bowlin is a native. Major teachers include Roland and Almita Vamos, Ronald Copes, Pamela Frank, Philip Setzer, Ani Kavafian, and Stephen and Kimberly Sims.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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