[NEohioPAL] New Faculty Appointments at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music

[Marci Janas]

Media Contacts Only:
Marci Janas, Director of Conservatory Media Relations
440-775-8328 (office); 440-667-2724 (cell); marci.janas at oberlin.edu
Charlotte Landrum, Associate Director of Conservatory Media Relations
440-775-5474 (office); 914-645-0162 (cell); charlotte.landrum at oberlin.edu




FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

*The Oberlin Conservatory of Music Announces New Faculty for Fall 2008*

Appointments Include Julien Robbins, Jack Mitchener, and Josh Levine

OBERLIN, OHIO (August 6, 2008) — David H. Stull, Dean of the Oberlin
Conservatory of Music, has announced that three new faculty members will
join the Conservatory in the fall of 2008 in the voice, organ, and
composition departments. Bass-baritone Julien Robbins will be Associate
Professor of Voice; organist Jack Mitchener joins the faculty as Associate
Professor of Organ; and composer Josh Levine will be Assistant Professor of
Composition.

*Julien Robbins has had a distinguished career in opera. *He debuted on the
stage of the Metropolitan Opera in 1979 and returned for the next 27
consecutive seasons, singing more than 50 different roles over the course of
his career there. His operatic repertoire spans all styles and time periods
and includes Cosi fan tutte, La Bohème, La Fanciulla del West, Die
Meistersinger, Carmen, Salomé, and Aida. A frequent guest of leading opera
companies throughout the United States, he has been heard at San Francisco
Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, and companies in
San Diego, Florida, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Philadelphia, and
Cincinnati. Internationally, he has sung at La Scala, Berlin's Deautsche
Oper, Hamburg State Opera, L'Opéra de Nice, and Lisbon Opera, and at the
Glyndebourne, Tanglewood, and Spoleto festivals.

A flexible performer, Robbins has also sung oratorio and opera in concert
with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the National Chorale, and at Carnegie
Hall with the Opera Orchestra of New York. He recorded Beethoven's Choral
Fantasy for Telarc with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa. He
has also appeared in numerous BBC-TV and Live from the Met PBS telecasts,
including La Traviata, Don Carlo, and Un Ballo in Maschera with Luciano
Pavarotti and Manon Lescaut and La Fanciulla del West with Placido Domingo.

As a teacher, Robbins has taught voice privately for years; given master
classes in Berlin, New York City, and Pennsylvania; and served as an adjunct
professor at Lehigh University. He earned a bachelor's degree in education
from West Chester University and completed training programs in opera at the
Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and the School of the Lyric Opera of
Chicago. Key to Robbins' teaching, though, is his extensive professional
experience in the opera world, a valuable knowledge base that he brings to
his work with every student.

*Organist Jack Mitchener has concertized widely in the United States and
Europe, *receiving critical acclaim for what the American Organist has
called his "expressive and original playing." He has performed in the
Magnolia Baroque, Piccolo Spoleto, and North Carolina Bach festivals and
many organ festivals in Europe, including those featuring the historic
Stellwagen organ in Lübeck, Germany, and the Egedacher instrument at Zwettl
Abbey in Austria. His European engagements include performances in Austria,
France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, and the United
Kingdom. In 2003 he completed a series of 15 recitals in which he played the
complete organ works of J. S. Bach. Equally at home with the romantic and
contemporary literature, he has premiered works by Emma Lou Diemer, Dan
Locklair, Margaret Vardell Sandresky, and Robert Ward. A recent review in
the Classical Voice of North Carolina praises his playing of romantic
repertoire: "Mitchener's playing was always poetic, and he brought out a
particularly rare eloquence to Franck's Chorale in B Minor." A top
prize-winner in the MTNA National, Philadelphia AGO, and Dublin
International competitions, he is a former organist of the Cathedral Church
of the Holy Trinity in Paris.

Mitchener began playing piano at an early age, and continued his studies in
piano and organ at the Interlochen Arts Academy and the North Carolina
School of the Arts. As a student at the National Conservatory in
Rueil-Malmaison, France, he received the Médaille d'Or in harpsichord and
the Prix d'Excellence and Prix de Virtuosité (unanimous first prizes) in
organ. He completed graduate work, including two master's degrees and a
doctor of musical arts, at the Eastman School of Music of the University of
Rochester, where he was the recipient of three graduate assistantships in
accompanying, organ, and early music. He also obtained the prestigious
performer's certificate in both organ and harpsichord at Eastman and was a
recipient of the Eastman School of Music Graduate Award for Excellence in
Teaching.

An experienced teacher, Mitchener's students have served in churches,
colleges, and universities throughout the country and have won major
international competitions. He comes to Oberlin from the North Carolina
School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, where he was Professor of Organ and
Chair of the Keyboard Department (he also served as organist at St. Paul's
Episcopal Church in Winston-Salem), and Salem College, where he was
Associate Professor of Organ and College Organist. He previously served on
the faculties of the Eastman School of Music Community Education Division
and the Colgate-Rochester Divinity School in Rochester, New York.

*Composer Josh Levine's music has been performed at major venues throughout
America and Europe*, including New York City's Merkin Hall; the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art; the Cité de la Musique, Centre Pompidou, and Maison de
la Radio in Paris; ISCM World New Music Days in Stockholm; the British Music
Information Centre in London; the Festival Synthèse in Bourges, France; and
at the Berne Biennale and the Zürich Tage für Neue Musik, both in
Switzerland. His music has also been broadcast on the BBC, Radio France,
Swiss Radio DRS and RSR, and the national stations of Sweden, Belgium, and
Poland.

Levine comes to Oberlin from San Francisco State University, where for the
past eight years he has lectured in composition, theory, and electronic
music. He has also taught composition at Stanford University and at the
University of California, San Diego, and has been a guest speaker and jury
member at universities and competitions internationally. He earned a
teacher's diploma with highest honors at the Basel Music Academy in
Switzerland, and a master of arts degree and doctorate in music composition
from the University of California, San Diego. He pursued additional courses
of study in Paris at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de
Paris and at IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination
Acoustique/Musique).

Levine has received commissions from the Festival Rümlingen, Ensemble
Intercontemporain, Ensemble Contrechamps, the Groupe de musique
expérimentale de Bourges, and Pro Helvetia, among others, and he has written
for a wide variety of instrumentations, including classical chamber
ensembles, bass clarinet solo, and computer-processed guitar and other
electronics. His Tel for electronic tape was released by Harmonia Mundi/Le
Chant du Monde on Culture Electroniques.

Levine's music has been honored with numerous awards, including the first
prize and special jury prize in the Bourges International Electroacoustic
Music Competition, a stipend prize in the Darmstadt Internationale
Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, and international jury selections for the ISCM
World New Music Days and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. He participated in
a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris that was sponsored
by the Fondation Patiño of Geneva, Switzerland. At the University of
California, San Diego, Levine was the recipient of the Gluck and Weill
fellowships for composers.

*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. Renowned
internationally as a professional music school of the highest caliber and
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.

###


-- 
Marci Janas
Director of Conservatory Media Relations
and Editor, Oberlin Conservatory Magazine
Oberlin Conservatory of Music
39 West College Street
Oberlin, OH 44074
www.oberlin.edu/con
Voice: 440.775.8328
Fax: 440.775.5457
marci.janas at oberlin.edu
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