[NEohioPAL]OC Black Musicians Guild concert

[Betty Gabrielli]

Showcasing the work of Black composers is one of the raison d'etres for the 
Oberlin Conservatory Black Musicians' Guild (OCBMG). On Sunday, February 
20, a violin concerto transcribed for the flute by Le Chevalier de St. 
Georges, a black contemporary of Mozart; a string arrangement of spirituals 
by Moses Hogan '79, and original music by Theodore Croker '07 will be among 
the works to be performed during a OCBMG dual-purpose concert that will 
feature a tribute to a long-time Guild supporter as well as the keyboard 
talents of hot young jazz artist Eric Lewis.

Oberlin Conservatory Black Musicians' Guild
Honors Frances Walker Slocum
With Black History Month Concert

New York Jazz Pianist
Eric Lewis is Guest Artist

FEBRUARY 9, 2005
RELEASE UPON RECEIPT

OBERLIN, OHIO--Frances Walker Slocum is emerita professor of pianoforte in 
the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a long time Oberlin resident.

Known for performing music by notable African American composers in 
critically acclaimed concerts in the United States and Europe, Walker 
Slocum also is a much-loved teacher and role model whose students have 
achieved renown in a variety of musical careers.

On Sunday, February 20, the Oberlin Conservatory Black Musicians' Guild 
will pay tribute to Walker Slocum's life and work in a concert that also 
will feature New York jazz pianist and composer Eric Lewis as guest artist. 
A former member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the 31-year-old Lewis 
is a rising star on the national jazz scene and was profiled last month in 
the New York Times.

The free, public concert will be held at 8 p.m.in  the Conservatory's 
Warner Concert Hall. The program will include works by a wide range of 
Black composers performed by guild instrumentalists and vocalists and 
excerpts from a recent interview with Walker Slocum.

While in Oberlin, Lewis will undertake a three-day guest residency that 
will include master classes, a jazz forum and a performance with the 
student ensemble, Theodore Croker and Kassa Overall Quintet.
Croker, a sophomore jazz studies major and co-chair, with Reginald 
Patterson of the Black Musicians' Guild, met Lewis last year while studying 
in New York with Lewis' mentor, Wynton Marsalis, conductor of the Lincoln 
Center Jazz Orchestra.

Lewis is a 1995 graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and apprenticed 
with the drummer Elvin Jones, the trumpeter Roy Hargrove, and the singers 
Jon Henricks and Cassandra Wilson. He also is the winner of the 1999 
Thelonius Monk International Piano Competition.

The guest artist is working on several film tracks, a score for a ballet 
commissioned by the Joffrey, and a number of solo engagements and can be 
heard on the Marsalis soundtrack for the Ken Burns' 2005 PBS documentary 
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson.
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Media contact: Betty Gabrielli 440 775 5423