[NEohioPAL] Oberlin Conservatory of Music Launches Record Label

[Marci Janas]

Media Contact Only:

Marci Janas, Director of Conservatory Media Relations

440-775-8328 (office); 440-667-2724 (cell); marci.janas at oberlin.edu


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:



OBERLIN CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC
LAUNCHES COMMERCIAL RECORD LABEL


OBERLIN, OHIO (October 9, 2007)—At a time when digital downloading  
has silenced a number of major music retailers, the Oberlin  
Conservatory of Music is facing the music with its own new,  
commercial label.

             Oberlin Music, which features select recordings made by  
the talented students and faculty members at the Oberlin Conservatory  
of Music, debuts with two releases that capture the Conservatory’s  
sense of innovation, spirit, and universality. The recordings are  
available on traditional CD as well as on digital music channels  
worldwide, including Apple’s iTunes.


Beauty Surrounds Us

This recording is the Oberlin Conservatory jazz faculty’s gift to the  
world, and features original compositions and performances by award- 
winning musicians who not only teach, but who also maintain active  
performing careers. Compositions by renowned Professor of African  
American Music Wendell Logan, chair of Oberlin’s Jazz Studies  
Program, open and close the album, forming bookends to works and  
performances by his faculty colleagues: saxophonist Gary Bartz,  
trumpeters Marcus Belgrave and Kenny Davis, bassist Peter Dominguez,  
trombonist Robin Eubanks, guitarist Bob Ferrazza, drummer Billy Hart,  
and pianist Dan Wall. From buoyant to funky to tender, the  
compositions include Logan’s “Shoefly” and “Remembrances,” Gary  
Bartz’s “GM3,” Eubanks’s “Back in the Day,” Belgrave’s “All My Love,”  
Ferrazza’s “Beauty Surrounds Us” and Wall’s “Carol’s Carol.”

             Dan Wall’s performance of a duel composition, “Dark  
Feelings/A Little Love Remains,” by the late pianist Neal Creque,  
pays homage to the prolific composer, who wrote more than 3,000  
compositions. Creque taught at Oberlin from 1988 until the time of  
his death in December 2000.

             The album was recorded in January 2006 at the Leon Lee  
Dorsey Recording Studio in New York City, and produced by Dorsey (a  
1981 Oberlin graduate) and engineered by Anthony Ruotolo.


The Oberlin Orchestra in China

The second masterful Oberlin Music album is The Oberlin Orchestra in  
China, recorded live at Beijing’s Poly Theater during the  
Conservatory’s ambitious recent tour of China. The exciting  
performances, under the baton of Bridget-Michaele Reischl, Music  
Director of the Oberlin Orchestras, include Gershwin’s Rhapsody in  
Blue, featuring pianist Thomas Rosenkranz, a 1999 Oberlin graduate;  
Bizet’s Carmen Suite; Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances; familiar movie themes  
by John Williams (violinist John Freivogel ’06 is the soloist for the  
theme from Schindler’s List); and other beloved works by Johann  
Strauss (senior and junior) and John Philip Sousa. Three popular  
Chinese folks songs are a delightful addition to the recording, which  
was engineered by the Conservatory’s Director of Conservatory Audio  
Services Paul Eachus.


Facing the Music

“Oberlin is perhaps the most innovative conservatory in the nation,  
and we are greatly excited by this new endeavor,” says Dean of the  
Conservatory David H. Stull. “The Oberlin Music label provides us  
with an extraordinary opportunity to educate our students in topics  
associated with the music industry. It sets an example that students  
can later emulate, inspiring them to go on and produce their own  
label after they graduate, when they will be able to assume complete  
artistic and financial control over their work.”

             Stull also points to the factors of convenience and  
durability that a recording label such as Oberlin Music provides.  
“With music distributed throughout the Internet, consumers can sample  
and really get to know a product before they purchase it. And, in a  
digital universe, where one can have access to music in perpetuity,  
Oberlin graduates returning to campus 50 years hence will find that  
their recordings are still available to the public online. This is by  
far more appealing than the traditional methods of manufacturing and  
retailing, where inventory eventually runs out.”

             Associate Dean of Technology and Facilities Michael  
Lynn, the producer of Oberlin Music, believes that the timing is  
right for a new label. “The Conservatory generates so many concerts  
and produces so much material that it makes absolute sense to do a  
continuing label. And while many in the music world are familiar with  
the Oberlin Conservatory, for them to fully comprehend the quality  
and excellence of our work they need to hear us. Oberlin Music is a  
big way in which people will be able to hear what we really do,” he  
says. “The label allows us to be dynamic with the huge range of music  
that is performed here and on tour, from opera to jazz to classical  
to historical performance.”


World-class Recording Facilities

Although the Oberlin Music debut releases were recorded off-site,  
future recordings on the label will benefit from Oberlin’s  
superlative recording facilities. “We have state-of-the-art  
equipment, including microphones that are on par with those used in  
the best commercial studios,” says Lynn. In the past eight to 10  
years, Oberlin has completely revamped the electronics in its  
principal performance venues—Finney Chapel, Warner Concert Hall, and  
Kulas Recital Hall. “In Finney, where our orchestra performs, we have  
just completed a technologically advanced control room for live web  
casts and radio broadcasts. Our new, high-definition cameras will  
allow us to do web streaming with high-quality video,” he adds.

           There’s more to look forward to. When Oberlin’s Phyllis  
Litoff Building becomes a reality, the recording studio housed there  
will be one of the finest of its kind in the nation. “Many recording  
facilities are designed to record a very small number of instruments  
at one time,” says Lynn. “This studio will be large enough that it  
will offer a genuine acoustical environment and allow for high- 
quality recording of many types of music and many sizes of ensemble.  
The acoustics will also be adjustable to suit the particular musical  
situation.”


The Future of Sound

Dean Stull notes that the future of recording will be quite different  
from what we’ve been familiar with. “The liability is that everything  
will be retained and distributed, and in this proliferation, people  
will seek a reliable and efficient means of navigating a chaotic  
environment. I believe that the key to the next phase of the  
recording industry will be to establish quality for the label itself,  
because the capacity for an individual to search the web for music  
based on qualitative reputation will be the most important factor in  
music distribution. Because the projects undertaken by the Oberlin  
Music record label will always be of the highest quality, audiophiles  
will have no trouble finding us in the labyrinth that is becoming  
music on the web.”

             CDs of Beauty Surrounds Us and The Oberlin Orchestra in  
China are available for purchase from the Oberlin Conservatory of  
Music for $15 each, plus shipping and handling, and may be ordered by  
calling Conservatory Audio at 440-775-8272, or by e-mailing Mary  
Sutorius at mary.sutorious at oberlin.edu.

             An important agreement entered into by the Conservatory  
with the Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA) is  
distributing Oberlin Music recordings digitally throughout the world.  
As a result, The Oberlin Orchestra in China is available for download  
from many distribution sources, including Apple’s iTunes.

             The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, founded in 1865 and  
situated amid the intellectual vitality of Oberlin College since  
1867, is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United  
States. The Conservatory is renowned internationally as a  
professional music school of the highest caliber and has been  
pronounced a “national treasure” by the Washington Post. Oberlin’s  
alumni have gone on to achieve illustrious careers in all aspects of  
the serious music world. Many of them have attained stature as solo  
performers, composers, and conductors, among them Jennifer Koh,  
Steven Isserlis, Denyce Graves, Franco Farina, Christopher Robertson,  
Lisa Saffer, George Walker, Christopher Rouse, David Zinman, and  
Robert Spano. All of the members of the contemporary sextet eighth  
blackbird, most of the members of the International Contemporary  
Ensemble, and many of the members of Apollo’s Fire are Oberlin  
alumni. In chamber music, the Miró, Pacifica, Juillard, and Fry  
Street quartets, among other small ensembles, include Oberlin-trained  
musicians, who also can be found in major orchestras and opera  
companies throughout the world. For more information about Oberlin,  
please visit www.oberlin.edu/con.



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