Oberlin, OH — January 24, 2012. At a Sunday morning ceremony in Klonick Hall of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music on January 22, Dean David Stull and donor Stephen Rubin announced the winners of the grand prize and public prize in the first bi-annual Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, which began on January 18.

The $10,000 prize went to Jacob Street (above, with Rubin and Stull), a master’s candidate in historical performance from North Reading, MA. In a surprise development, the panel awarded honorable mention to Megan Emberton, a senior piano major from Chelsea, MI, along with a cash award of $2,500.

During the Institute, ten Rubin Scholars prepared in a fall term Introduction to Music Criticism Class team taught by Mike Telin and Daniel Hathaway of ClevelandClassical.com and Donald Rosenberg of The Plain Dealer, wrote reviews of Oberlin Artist Recital Series Concerts by The Cleveland Orchestra, pianist Jeremy Denk, Apollo’s Fire and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Reviews were critiqued by a panel of national music critics including Alex Ross of The New Yorker, Anne Midgette of The Washington Post, Heidi Waleson of The Wall Street Journal, Tim Page of USC, John Rockwell, retired critic of The New York Times, and Rubin, who is publisher at Henry Holt in New York.

A Public Prize for the best review of one of the first three concerts by a member of the audience, as judged by the teaching panel of Telin, Hathaway and Rosenberg, was awarded to Samantha London of Baltimore, MD (above, with Stull, Hathaway, Rosenberg, Telin and Rubin). In yet another surprise move, the Conservatory announced the awarding of an honorable mention to Earl Pike of Cleveland Heights, along with a prize of $250.

Click here to visit the Rubin Institute website, where full coverage of the Institute includes postings of all the student reviews and the top 18 audience reviews.

Published on ClevelandClassical.com January 24, 2012

Over the past hundred years, popular music has crossed over into nearly all genres. In the nineteen twenties, pop music was marked by jazz and blues styles, while nearly forty years later it was defined by artists such as Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Marvin Gaye. Despite Michael Jackson’s reign as “The King of Pop” during the eighties and nineties, the emergence of far too many boy bands, meaningless and crass hip-hop artists (this by no means discredits the meaningful and tasteful), and the unfortunate number of “plastic-platinum” pop-singers, it seems that the quality of popular music has declined.

What is popular music? Music is often divided into three categories: popular music, art music, and traditional or folk music. Popular music can be in any genre but must appeal and be distributed to large quantities of people; Art music “requires significantly more work by the listener” in order for it to be fully appreciated. Traditional or folk music is often disseminated through oral traditions, and is centered in cultural of historical events.

However, who is to say that a song cannot be all three of these? Is “Like a Rolling Stone” not an immensely popular song worthy of contemplation about society? Due to genre or stylistic crossover and the nature of composition – the study of past composers, borrowing, and the use of folk and culturally important themes – there is no real reason for categorizing. In theory, popular music does not have to be the antithesis of art music. But current popular music requires no thought from the listener and therein is the problem.

There are always going to be outliers and loopholes. For instance, Michael Jackson would be an outlier while Lady Gaga would find a loophole. Michael Jackson’s music is captivating, groovy, has integrity, and is defended by those who were associated with it: guitarist Eddie Van Halen, jazz-legend N’dugu Chancler, and producer jazz trumpeter/producer Quincy Jones. It is clear that Lady Gaga’s skills as an artist feature a unique voice and image and songwriting skills that are more advanced and developed than many of her contemporaries, but the fact of the matter remains, is it really fair (correct, moral, conscientious, really any sense of the word) to put her in the same group with Sinatra, Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Gaye, and Michael Jackson? The obvious answer: No.

The disappearance of art music from the popular psyche is as important as the decline in quality in popular music. Popular music aficionados fail to recognize art music, the contents of which may as well be listed under avant-garde in the record stores, or rather, in the iTunes music store.

Two hundred years ago popular music and art music were joined at the hip. Beethoven’s works and the birth of the Romantic Era coincided with the rise of the middle classes. Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann composed lieder which could be sung and played in the home by amateur musicians. At the same time that the middle classes expanded they received a more formalized and substantial education and formulated an idea of art and music. The masses were able to sing and play music that did not require the same technical ability as music that one would find in the concert hall, but was more suited for the salon. The music was attainable, and it featured poetic verses with melodies that were relatively easy to sing. Stephen Foster would be a good example of a more popular American equivalent, although his music was far less refined and complex as Schubert’s or Schumann’s.

This begs the following questions: 1) What is considered art music today if art music two hundred years ago bore similarities unique also to popular music? 2) Why aren’t the masses listening to and emulating a modern day equivalent to Schubert? 3) What is it that makes the music of Schubert and Schumann both popular music and art music? 4) Why is James Blake so important to all of this?

1. Today, art music and popular music are not joined at the hip. While classical music and jazz are relevant today, they are not prevalent among most audiences. Other types of art music though, such as electronic music, or even the more “out” styles of rock, are mostly considered avant-garde by a majority of listeners, with the exception of some late Radiohead works.

2. One reason why the masses are not gravitating towards art music is that music in general has expanded. The choice isn’t between a symphonic work, a piece of folk music, or a string quartet anymore, nor is it between Jazz/Blues, Folk/Traditional, or Classical. It’s between a choice of genre, and inside each genre, a choice of subgenre, and inside each subgenre, a choice of thousands of different artists, totaling millions of listening possibilities. The masses are still focused on listening to something that is attainable, and that must be understood by anyone who endeavors to infuse popular music with much needed quality. However, whether or not the music was created with or intended to boast exceptional quality is beside the point to the average modern listener. The tormenting concern that emerges from all of this is what will popular music look like in forty years?

3. The aspect of both Schubert and Schumann’s music that makes them so powerful, requiring deep consideration yet attaining widespread popularity is the poetry. Schubert’s Winterreise is a song cycle that uses Wilhelm Müller’s poems and Schumann’s Dichterliebe sets poetry by Heinrich Heine. Modern composers who work both in art and popular music must share this concern for poetry as well. Bob Dylan was considered to be the “voice of a generation” due to his cutting, politically- and socially-driven lyrics. His music was both appealing to the ear and understandable with contemplation and analysis.

4. James Blake is the reason why I am not worried.

James Blake (age 23) began his career in the genres of electronic music and dub-step (a genre of electronic dance music) less than three years ago. Blake did not follow the normal conventions of growth in attaining popularity. On his first three EP’s, The Bells Sketch, CMYK, and Klavierwerke, he achieved a unique sound, immediately garnering respect and a reputation for forward-thinking in his genre. The young sensation gained fame for elements of dance music and popular music, but he also received much criticism for his self-titled LP, James Blake, and in a later EP, Enough Thunder, because of his stylistic transformation from dub-step oriented to more of a singer-songwriter approach.

His new work has components that are electronically driven, but the abundance of melodious phrases approach the depths of traditional songwriting and composition. Each effect, word, and tone is as carefully planned and well-orchestrated as “Nessun Dorma,” from Puccini’s Turandot. His poignant lyrics are populated by social-commentary and there is no doubt that prolific songwriters such as Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell are at the forefront of his influencers. Blake has already attained widespread popularity, and yet what he is creating is art music.

On the first level, Blake’s work is so sonically pleasing that even the most casual listener won’t find anything in it so repugnant as to declare it worthless; neither would the most erudite listener have contempt for it. On the second level, the music is infused with his background and interest in popular genres such as dub-step and electronic music, which is why he appeals to such a large audience. And on the third level, his music forces and allows the listener to search for intentions, aspirations, and influences, and most of all to share and create connections. His music is as thrilling as it is innovative and as pop-influenced as it is avant-garde.

James Blake is a long overdue reminder that popular music does not mean “void of virtuosity;” that Beethoven and Schubert and Sinatra and Lennon aren’t letting loose disapproving sighs in regard to the current state of music; and that forty years from now, music, and popular music in specific, might even be, well, pretty decent. Art music has not been dead; its popularity has just been dormant.

Gabe Kanengiser, a California-hailing sophomore at the Oberlin College of Arts and Sciences, is working on majors in Creative Writing and Arts Business and Management, a self-designed program of study. Kanengiser began managing bands in his hometown Los Angeles in 2008, and less than a year later co-founded arts management, production, and promotion company Pickup Music. As the head of business and management, Gabe oversaw all projects and acted as manager for all of Pickup Music’s clients. In high school Kanengiser studied jazz and classical saxophone with Lee Secard at the Colburn School of Music. At Oberlin Kanengiser, who writes for the student publications Fearless and Loathing and the Oberlin Review, is working towards opening a shop specializing in instrument repair, an avocation he picked up during a 2011 Winter Term internship with prominent L.A. repairman Jay Work. He is one of ten students selected as Rubin Fellows to participate in the Oberlin Rubin Institute for Music Criticism in January, 2012.

Published on ClevelandClassical.com January 17, 2012

Composers continually forge new roads into artistic wildernesses. How does a composer forge an online identity in the 21st century? YouTube, Facebook, PureVolume, InstantEncore, and MySpace are large commercial sites that provide platforms for emerging and established artists to shine. They allow users to access and discover new music and musicians instantly. So perhaps the more important question is, how can musicians form a unique identity in the midst of millions of artists without being conflated with someone else or swept into an unwanted genre?

The medium that people use to enjoy music has changed from vinyl records to CDs to iPods and YouTube videos, but the music remains. What will remain in our psyche? What types of composers will we become? But ultimately, the question is: how will what we make become who we are? And that is the question for all of us.

Composers in the 21^st century range from Jay-Z to Jennifer Higdon to Philip Glass to Esperanza Spalding. Some write Pulitzer-Prize winning violin concertos, others perform, produce, create, and design hip-hop albums, and still others jam in the garage with their friends. The present-day listener finds well-traveled musical roads that Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Ravel, and Stravinsky established, while exploring completely new paths through the Internet, a virtual world that puts millions of tracks at one’s fingertips.

Nowadays, everyone is a composer. Think about it: from a toddler who bangs on pots and pans to a drummer in India who dances in the streets; from a didgeridoo player in the deserts of Australia to an annoying coworker who taps and clicks pens to a high school hip-hop slam poet extraordinaire — we all compose something.

What do our compositions say about us? Does pot-banging make us young and naïve? Do clicking pens mean we’re anxious? Does slam poetry suggest a rougher, grittier message? No, but they do offer insights into a narrative. Does one’s message make an identity? Can a single message rise from the millions of others we encounter and speak to us?

Compositions relay a message or tell a story. Some have words and others have full orchestras and some have nothing at all. (John Cage’s famous 4’33” has the performer sit on stage, silently, for that length of time.) What did the rise of atonalism after World War I say about musical structure and order within the global, political context? What does today’s Top 40 list say about this generation?

Artists, musical and otherwise, speak for their time. Mozart was at the command of the Emperor and the Church. Beethoven forged new sonic territories as the piano transformed into the instrument we know today. Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School created a musical system that used complex math and notes (not tonal keys or chords) as the foundation. The Beatles came over in suits and ties and then indulged in “herbs” and drugs. Composers’ artistic and personal journeys tell a narrative about their music.

But how does one become a “serious” (as opposed to amateur) composer, anyway? Is it your upbringing? Innate talent and ability? Nationality? Many famous composers were born into extremely musical families: Jackson 5, the Von Trapps and the Bachs (J.S., for one), are three examples. Others were sent to school, like Claude Debussy and Esperanza Spalding, to develop their gift. Still others, like John Coltrane and Leonard Bernstein, were born gifted and influenced their generation and untold generations to come.

What sets Jay-Z apart from George Gershwin from Johannes Brahms? Are “serious” composers above the humdrum popular musicians? Even the term “western art music” is questionable. Is classical, or any form of notated music, a higher form of art?

And is complex better than simple? Philip Glass is often shoved aside by musical know-it-alls because he is a mere minimalist. Iannis Xenakis, a Greek composer, wrote many percussion works without notes, but simply notations, and left the musician to decide the instruments, tempi and interpretation. These composers, in stark contrast to other modern composers who meticulously composed every rhythm, articulation, note, timbre, dynamic and extended technique gave performers incredible power to make art how they, not the composers, saw fit. Is complex and meticulously notated better than simple and free? Or vice versa? Which one speaks more for our time?

I respect the sacrosanctity of Beethoven’s string quartets, Wagner’s operas and Bach’s keyboard works, but I also respect the incredible innovation and composition that popular and untrained artists accomplish daily. I revere contemporary, trained composers, and I admire country artists (and their producers) who create meticulously crafted albums. I see the sublime in the classical canon but I also appreciate the beauty in a pop song.

Technology has ripped the seams of musical definitions. With a tiny bit of computer skill, anyone can create a song or compose. Computers make composing, recording, producing and sharing music easier than ever. The Internet has become the 21^st century bar or coffeehouse; musicians, often “indie” because they don’t have a record deal, are discovered because of their grassroots popularity. In a matter of weeks, they’re recording, releasing albums and basking in the limelight.

But how will esteemed composers and artists hold up in the next century, given the paradigmatic shift in how listeners access, listen to, and enjoy music and art?

Music-fiends have loathed the death of the album since the onset of the Internet and file-sharing sites, like Napster/ Napster, and other similar applications and site, allows users to download MP3s and single tracks off an entire album. So instead of buying an entire Smash Mouth album, users could download one track: “All-Star”. Will composers become inextricably linked to one or two singles? Will future listeners only know the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in c minor or thirty seconds of Orff’s Carmina Burana? And what does the obsession with tracks and “sound bites” mean for us?

And for composers? Will composers strive for the 30-second commercial jingle? Or the Hollywood film score breakthrough? Will anyone ever really pay attention to a song for more than 5 minutes? Or are we as a culture simply losing our concentration and appreciation for long-form narrative and prose?

This piece, for example, is twice the length of a typical review and much more in depth. How many readers stayed with me? And how many simply took a glance and decided it wasn’t worth their time?

This gets us back to the questions I originally posed: how will what we make become who we are? How does technology define, transform and transport artists’ legacies and work? What will we do with nearly unlimited access to music and media?

I give no answers. Philip Glass, the mere miminalist, said,

“Traditions are imploding and exploding everywhere — everything is coming together, for better or worse, and we can no longer pretend we’re all living in different worlds because we’re on different continents.”

As traditions implode, composers and listeners alike must acknowledge the vast array of music and art that is produced by persons and cultures across the globe. As technology and composition continue to come together, I can only envision a world in which people appreciate the vast range of composers, compositions, artists and messages.

That, I think, will become who we are. If we can see the artist in others, regardless of nationality, talent, ability, nationality, religion and schooling, we may begin to recognize our common humanity and intertwining existences.

Mandy Hogan is a third-year, double-degree student from Jersey Village, Texas. At Oberlin, she studies politics and viola performance, proudly serves on Student Senate and as Junior Class president, researches the arts in underserved communities for Music in America, and maintains a small studio of students.

Hogan also is a committed teacher and champion of the arts in underserved communities outside of Oberlin. She has worked for the Underground Railway Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a facilitator of cross-cultural collaboration, exhibition, and performance in the arts, and as a Teaching Artist for the Noel Pointer Foundation in Brooklyn, New York.

Last summer she received a Creativity and Leadership grant to intern with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the Knights Orchestra in New York City. This winter, Hogan will work on an array of employment discrimination projects through an internship with the Legal Aid Society–Employment Law Center in San Francisco.

In her spare time, Hogan enjoys doing absolutely nothing (and drinking coffee). After Oberlin, she intends to practice law and advocate for LGBTQ and low-income persons.

Published on ClevelandClassical.com January 17, 2012

Composers of centuries past and present have sought various avenues to maintain the particular brew of their craft. Whether these roads have guided their careers towards writing music befitting of the demands of a patron with two-thousand francs to spare, or for a pharmaceutical company, like Pfizer — the producers of that jagged little pill, Advil — composers have always needed to meet the bidding of a greater power in order to survive in the music industry.

For twenty-first century composers, however, does this mean sacrificing the aestheticism of beauty in art for the demands of the almighty dollar? Nowadays, it’s inevitable to avoid commercial venues — i.e. film, TV, radio, etc. — as a way towards meeting a financially stable career in composition. In some respects, many classical music elitists would find this route clichéd and unworthy of high art. So, one ultimate question comes to mind: is music composed in the style of the commercial route considered to be “sold out”?

How classical music is viewed today is much different than it was in centuries past. Music never reached the possibility of being categorized as “sold-out”. Now, there is an aura of timelessness that lives in the music of historical composers like Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. Even Leonard Bernstein, during the 1960s, described Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as a piece of art that would forever be the savior of humankind. Of course, the music of Mozart and Beethoven is still studied extensively due to the fact that both composers forever changed aspects of western classical music. However, the contributions of certain big-name composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, like John Williams or Howard Shore, do not have the same impact as these historical composers. Their fame results from their association with such blockbuster films as Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and George Lucas’s Star Wars saga, just to name a few. But, is having their claim to fame through cinema a debasement of their reputation as successful composers within the classical music world?

This is not clearly so in the career of Philip Glass, who has combined both the worlds of critical and commercial success. His accomplishments are an interesting testament to composers living within the last fifty years, especially within popular culture. According to the website, Celebrity Net Worth, Glass is currently worth $35 million. Even if this amount is not a correct estimate, the fact that he is featured as a celebrity on a website invested in the lives of the famous would lead many people to consider him sold-out.

As a student with Nadia Boulanger, the famous mentor and teacher of such composers as Aaron Copland, Astor Piazzolla, and Quincy Jones, Glass developed a compositional style that was particularly attractive within the world of musical academia. He won many awards, including a Fulbright Scholarship to study with Boulanger and a BMI Student Composer Award. Clearly, he possessed a vast amount of potential as the quintessential academic composer. However, after studying with Ravi Shankar, the renowned sitarist famous for playing alongside the Beatles’ George Harrison, Glass ventured away from continuing to follow what his teachers were advising him to do and started to sculpt his own compositional voice, as he stated in an interview with composer, Peter Gordon. “I wanted to develop a language,” he says, “to oppose complexity with directness, obscurity with expressivity.” Glass was on a path towards artistic sincerity and progression. In doing so, he also with hit with consequences for taking that path. As he also states in the interview, he lost the money he worked so hard to accrue in the initial stages of his career, and the good opinion of many musical elitists as well.

Although Glass does not like to call his music minimalist, the fact that he helped create the genre indicates that his music meets the demands of aestheticism of beauty in art. After all, he continued the classical music tradition in a way that fits the current times. As Alex Ross of the New Yorker claims, “Philip Glass is without a doubt America’s most famous living composer of classical music.” There should be no stigma attached to his having written music for such films as the Hours, and The Truman Show, or for commercials for such corporations as American Express. Ross calls Glass a living composer of classical music — not minimalist, not pop, and not film music.

Maybe like Mozart or Beethoven, composers today still have the chance to influence and impact those pupils following in their footsteps. As composers become more of an independent stronghold in publicizing and marketing themselves, “selling-out” will lose its connotation. Instead of doubting the artist, as Glass illustrates, “we should doubt ourselves and listen with an open mind.”

Meghan Farnsworth, a violinist and senior musical studies major at Oberlin College, has always considered Oberlin a source of musical inspiration. Raised in nearby Wellington, Ohio, she began her training as a singer with the Oberlin Choristers at age 7, with whom she continued to work through high school. She began studying violin through the conservatory’s String Preparatory Program.

At Oberlin, Farnsworth has taken full advantage of the many unique musical opportunities the college has to offer. Through covering jazz, classical, and contemporary music, and historical performance for publications such as ClevelandClassical.com, the Oberlin Review, Oberlin Conservatory Communications, and her blog, Sonic Bridges, she has developed a passion for the way music speaks across a range of sonic mediums.

Farnsworth has continued her study of the violin with Oberlin’s Community Music School and Alla Aranovskaya of the St. Petersburg String Quartet. This January she will be interning at the Hechinger Report, a publication of the Teachers College at Columbia University.

Published on ClevelandClassical.com January 17, 2012

On the Internet, history gets written backwards. Network consciousness starts on the periphery, as independent dots connect around the edges filling in the unknown piece-by-piece, reaching back to create a history and molding a collective impression. The cliché is that information travels on the web at near instantaneous speeds, but collectively piecing together the history of a scene from afar takes much longer than you would think, and leaves an uneven and distorted perception in the collective consciousness. The rise of interest in, and popularity of Chicago Footwork and Juke music outside of Chicago, particularly in England over the last two years, is a case study for the messy, complicated tangle of network historiography.

By comparison, the actual history of Juke and Footwork in Chicago is fairly simple. It’s easy to connect it to the long lineage of African-American music traditions and to see points of connection with popular dance music. Disco leads to House leads to Ghetto House leads to Juke and to Footwork. This chain is a timeline but also a pyramid with each step up growing smaller in terms of resources available to it and the size of the communities involved. By the end of the 90’s, Dance Mania, the premier label for Ghetto House, shut its doors and a corporate takeover sanitized Chicago radio, implementing national programming formats with little room for local music. Pivotal figures like DJ Deeon dropped out of the scene and younger producers and DJs waiting in the wings to join them now lacked the infrastructure and platforms to release their music and gain exposure outside of their communities.

Out of the spotlight even of most Chicagoans, and free from the commercial restraints of record labels and radio, the scene turned insular. The constant feedback loop between footwork dancers and DJs/producers pushed the sound through a rapid blur of innovation. Tempos soared from 130bpm to 160bpm. The repetitive chants from Ghetto House splintered into their constituent syllables and splattered across an increasingly complex rhythmic framework. Two distinct dance styles formed: Juke, a sped up extension of Ghetto House for male-to-female dancing in clubs and parties; and Footwork, the frantic, kinetic music of Footwork dance battles. While Juke had its share of big records that were inescapable in Chicago, and spread to the surrounding areas, especially Detroit, it was never the predominant music like House was in late 80’s. The audience for Footwork is even smaller: in a lecture for Red Bull Music Academy, DJ Rashad estimated that at any given time between 200 and 300 people were active in the battle scene. So how does a tiny subculture within an already marginalized community become the cachet style du jour within London’s dance music cognoscenti? Simple: YouTube.

Professors always warn their students of the dangers of using Wikipedia. It’s great for simple facts like dates and places, but when it comes to painting a picture of something resembling the truth you get an image that’s unfocused and out of proportion. The problem with Juke is that there is no definitive work chronicling the scene from an insider’s perspective to provide clarity, leaving YouTube’s distorted lens as the only option available to curious outsiders. It’s then possible to comprehend that DJ Nate, an 18-year-old aspiring rapper and producer with marginal connections to the scene, would be the first Juke artist to get a record deal outside of Chicago and not a thirty-something-year-old pioneer of the sound like DJ Rashad or Traxman. In 2008 and 2009 why would grown men waste their time uploading tracks to YouTube? Especially when, as working DJs with limited opportunities to release music, they were incentivized to keep their music exclusive to live sets and self-released mix tapes.

It’s hard to be mad at Mike Paradinas, the owner of Planet Mu, the label chiefly responsible for releasing Juke music outside of Chicago, because without him Juke would probably not be receiving anywhere close to the amount of attention it is. There has been considerable backlash towards Paradinas regarding his choice of releases and the problematic territory that comes with a white European commercializing African-American music from a scene in which he has no vested interest. While the bottom line may be that as a fully independent label it is Peradinas’ prerogative to release whatever music he likes — and by releasing this music that can sound alien to the uninitiated he has certainly taken a risk that has undoubtedly helped everyone involved with this music — his selection and Juke’s context within the ten plus years of Planet Mu releases have led to misperceptions and a skewed discourse surrounding the subculture.

Planet Mu has made its name by releasing a brand of music based around electronic dance idioms repurposed into more intellectualized formats not meant for club consumption. Juke, being dance music first and foremost, sits squarely outside of this, more akin to the source material used as a jumping off point for other artists on the label, as it was for Machinedrum’s 2011 release Room(s). As the sole curator of Juke releases outside of Chicago, his taste for the more experimental end of the music and his choice to release the sometimes sloppier productions — at least to the ears of Chicagoans — of younger, less dedicated producers presents an image of the music perhaps more exciting to his audience of beat fetishists eager for the next big sound to come from some unknown 18-year-old ghetto computer wizard. Unfortunately this approach greatly undercuts the work of well-known men who have dedicated their lives to creating an art form.

Ultimately its hard to know how much this is due to the blockage and imbalances in the flow of information about this music over the internet, and how much was due to Paradinas’ taste in music — or laziness in terms of due-diligence. Fortunately it seems that the ship is righting itself. While Nate dominated early on, DJ Rashad & DJ Spinn seem rightfully to have risen up as Juke’s ambassadors to the world, having recently completed a successful European Tour. Hopefully perception will eventually correct itself, or maybe the cyber-rubberneckers will lose attention and move on to the next trending topic.

When at age 6 Sam Rosenberg transcribed the Power Rangers’ theme song on a toy piano given to him by his parents, he began an uncommon musical career. Fast forward through piano and drum-kit stints to age 12, and Rosenberg was a rock and roll guitar player, performing in party and dance bands at his middle school in Brooklyn, New York. Move to high school and Rosenberg was playing jazz at the Beacon School, where he helped found the Beacon Jazz Band and was one of 25 students selected to perform multimedia music in three cities across India, a trip recorded in Anand Kamalaker’s 2010 documentary Building Bridges.

Rosenberg, now 22 and a jazz guitar major in his senior year at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, has become a cornerstone of Oberlin’s hip-hop scene. Since 2009, he’s held the position of hip-hop director at WOBC-91.5 FM, Oberlin’s student-operated radio station, and regularly brings MCs to campus through Hip-Hop 101, a student booking and promotional organization.

In 2010 Sam lived in Argentina for seven months, where he studied at the National School of the Arts and learned natural construction on an organic farm in Patagonia. Beginning in summer 2011, Rosenberg began working with Brooklyn-based Dutty Artz record-label boss DJ/Rupture on “The Soy Waltz,” an installation piece for Netherlands’ Incubate Festival.

Published on ClevelandClassical.com January 10, 2012

There are those who welcome change and those who resist it. Classical music patrons who fall into the latter category would have everyone believe that their choice of music is dying. When asked to elaborate, those dejected, averse-to-change listeners will cite the same signs of its imminent death that have been listed ever since the birth of rock and roll: aging patrons and half-empty concert halls. For them, classical music is engaged in a losing battle. However, forward thinking classical music lovers, who welcome and even embrace change, see opportunity rather than wreckage. It is not the music that is dying but rather, the tradition in which audiences receive it.

Although classical music tends to draw an older, “graying” crowd, not all of its enthusiasts are dropping like flies. Therein lays a flaw in cynical patrons’ point of view: their information is faulty due to its subjectivity. Perhaps older audiences appreciate and understand classical music better than other genres; maybe they were exposed to it or found interest in it later in life. Could it be that their current life experiences draw them to classical music just like the current life experiences of energetic college students draws them to pop or techno? That is not to say, however, that classical music does not have a footing in younger generations. Simply look at the myriad conservatories and music schools dotting the international landscape – it seems that almost every urban center has at least one decent to excellent music school.

If classical music enthusiasts are not all dying or already dead, how do we explain the decline of audiences in the big concert halls? The music is as beautiful as ever and the performers that conservatories churn out yearly are more and more proficient. Why, then, does it seem as though classical music has already had its heyday? The music hasn’t, as is evidenced by the number of performers and the caliber of performances that an audience member can hear almost anywhere. The outdated factor of a concert featuring classical music is the concert tradition itself. Ours is a generation of instant gratification, with the world at our fingertips and endless entertainment right at home. The traditional concert hall setting for classical music simply does not fit into our cultural habits. Why go to a concert hall that is forty minutes away when you can rent a DVD and watch it in high definition in your own living room with surround sound? While it is true that there is nothing quite like experiencing a great live concert, how often do these unique events actually occur? If a local opera company is performing The Magic Flute but the movie theater down the street is showing The Met’s latest simulcast, who wouldn’t prefer the comfort of a movie theater, where you can even eat and drink during the performance?

The sad truth is that going to a concert just to hear a concert is no longer enough impetus to leave the house. If someone is expected to put in the effort of going to a concert, there had better be fireworks, costume changes or some other “wow” factor that engages each individual member of the audience. It is not a question of why no one is coming – it is easier, cheaper and, oftentimes, more entertaining not to go – but how to draw those people who are staying at home. The element that every arts administrator and public relations employee should be examining is that one aspect that makes their symphony orchestra, their solo recital series or their chamber music event different from all of the others.

One way to prevent the extinction of the concert experience is through education. Every concert should include an element of growth and learning. Due to the historical component inherent in classical music, modern audiences need to contextualize the music to truly understand it, otherwise they may find it boring and unmoving. Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony is a masterpiece that most average citizens could not fully experience without knowing that it was the first symphony that he wrote outside the omnipresent glare of the Soviet Regime. Its fearsome and fleeting second movement is even more powerful knowing that Shostakovich described it as a portrait of Stalin. Of course, these details are written in the program notes, but having someone standing in front of an audience and telling the piece’s story is so much more personal.

Concerts must also be updated to fulfill the needs of its audience, which means that concerts containing older music must somehow be made accessible to today’s societal and cultural idiosyncrasies. As a whole, this generation cannot concentrate without checking Facebook, Twitter, texts and emails every five minutes, is relatively narcissistic, and has little desire to leave the comfort of home. Administrators hoping to promote classical music must somehow address these very real and common traits and incorporate them into the concert series. How can administrators convince more people to go to concerts? Have more venues that are smaller and more intimate than The Concert Hall. If every few blocks had a café that served mochas and music, wouldn’t people attend the concerts? And while it is unrealistic to have a symphony orchestra play in a coffeehouse, couldn’t a concert hall bring the ethos of a café or a bar into their venue? Why can’t the lively atmosphere and drink availability inherent to cafes and bars be transplanted to large concert halls? (Who wouldn’t want to listen to Daphnis et Chloe accompanied by a nice glass of cognac?)

A concert’s program is a very important aspect to consider when trying to appeal to larger and more disparate audiences. Due to our cultural attention deficit, the pieces making up the program should be shorter and somehow connected by a common thread or theme. The programs as a whole do not need to be shorter, but there should be smaller chunks of music. However, this brings into question larger pieces such as symphonies and operas. It is pieces like these that an explanation and analysis (not theoretical but historical and contextual) is of an utmost importance. An uninformed listener to a Mahler symphony may feel like he is drowning endlessly in a sea of massive chords while his neighbor does not feel that time is at a standstill because she knows and loves the music. If knowledge is power, than we must start educating our audiences.

The final element in contemporizing old music is mixing it with the new, current and now. By combining media, arts and music, surprising relationships can emerge. Playing live classical music in an unexpected venue (such as The Cleveland Orchestra’s occasional Offstage Concerts, one of which brought visiting cello soloist Alban Gerhardt to a local supermarket) can draw out customers’ otherwise dormant curiosities about the music. This is where administrators, artists and managers can have fun by finding themes, linking together different genres of art and music and presenting it to an audience.

Classical music is in an exciting, not tenuous, position in our culture. If everything from aesthetic sensibilities to technology is changing and growing, why shouldn’t our perception and appreciation of classical music change and grow with it? Rather than fearing its death, we must open up the vault for new experiences.

Charlotte Dutton is a fifth-year double-degree candidate majoring in German Studies and Piano Performance at Oberlin College and Conservatory. The North Hollywood, California native believes that music has a unique power to bring people of all cultures and backgrounds together. She participated in Oberlin’s Entrepreneurship Scholars Program and was awarded a grant from Oberlin’s Creativity Fund to study the creation and sustenance of urban cultural societies with an emphasis on music. After her graduation in May, she intends to move to New York and follow her dream of becoming a non-performing music enthusiast, working in the fields of performing arts administration, music education, and music writing. She has been named one of ten Rubin Fellows who will participate in Oberlin’s Rubin Institute for Music Criticism in January.

Published on ClevelandClassical.com January 10, 2012

Dear Cameron Carpenter,

Thanks for reading this. I know that you are very busy. You play more organ concerts in a year than I may give in my entire lifetime! But this brings me to a confession: I’m an organist myself. I know what you think: that I hate you. That I think you’re a fraud and a hack. That I hate your history-be-damned style, your traveling digital organ, and your flamboyant performances. That I must be one of the leading exponents of the organ whose every preconception you challenge, like the Wall Street Journal wrote about you.

But I’m here to tell you the opposite—I don’t hate you. In fact, most organists don’t hate you. And why should they? You’re a great advocate for the instrument. You’re passionate and successful. You work hard, and your technique is impressive. You even show more than a few glimmers of what a “traditional organist” would call “traditional musicality”! I would certainly protest being included as one of your (imagined or otherwise) fervent detractors. This letter is in no way designed to contribute to the martyr-like image the media constructs around you. We organists are a stodgy bunch, but we can still respect your work, just as we respect any product of American dedication to finely processed marketability—like the Twilight novels, or Cheese Whiz.

But listen to you! You sound exhausted. You talk about retiring early and dying young. It’s a tough job to play a different organ almost every day. It’s so tough, actually, that no ordinary organists choose to do it. But you’re no ordinary organist. You have a strict workout routine designed to keep those limbs limber, in what you call an “out-of-shape field.” You’re striking blows for artistic freedom (your words) in each sequin you painstakingly sew to your performance shirts. You transcribe everything from Chopin to Indiana Jones themes for the organ, you undeniably play the hell out of them, and you always add a personal spin.

But listen: you need to relax. You don’t have to worry about the mark you’ll leave on the world after you’re gone, because you’re probably not going to leave one at all! And that’s OK. In fifty years, people will still be playing J.S. Bach the same ways they’ve always played it, and no one will be playing Chopin like Cameron Carpenter. It’s simply too much for one man to buck centuries of tradition all by himself. But this shouldn’t be too surprising. You claim to be the “first Cameron Carpenter,” not the second Virgil Fox, but that famous organ virtuoso’s career certainly followed this sort of organist-as-auteur idea—and today’s organ world is more strictly devoted to the ideas of the past than ever.

And, again, don’t confuse this with my own personal prejudices. Your performances are a dreamy, stupefying gateway to even more serious stuff, and anything that gets people pursuing a new interest can’t be all bad.

But why will your take on the organ always be the alternative, the sideshow, the unusual? Is it laziness from most organists? Or the pervasiveness of the more “traditional” style in church music? Well, really, it’s the centuries of tradition and history that you’re trying to upheave. You say that you hate those who venerate the instrument over the performer—after all, “you don’t go to hear Van Halen’s guitar, or Lang Lang’s piano,” as you told The New Yorker. And you think it’s absurd to have to deal with technical problems in the midst of a concert—that you should be able to perform without the so-called “filter of obnoxious malfunction.” I’ll certainly grant you those two points to some degree—maybe The American Organist magazine could feature an American organist on its cover someday, instead of just American organs! And sure, breaking the instrument in the middle of a concert is just so darn frustrating, you know?

But it’s the challenge and uniqueness of each instrument that should make it fun to play and interesting to be heard, not annoying. You say that you want more of a relationship with an organ than “a one-night stand” — that you “crave the relationship that the most meagre violinist has with his instrument.” But, hell, what could be more “intimate” (if I must extend your disturbing metaphor) than getting to know an instrument that is distinct from every other one like it? Organs have more variety in their mechanics, sound, and personality than any other instrument, ever. That makes it very easy to play them badly — that’s why so few organists would ever play so many different organs in such a short time — but it makes them even more satisfying to play well. And doesn’t that challenge interest you enough to make you reconsider playing all of your recitals on the same damn electronic box?

So let it not be said that organists don’t love fun, or lots of real fast notes, or even Indiana Jones. We do, really, even in our own playing. And the exposure your passion brings to our beloved instrument is invaluable. Just remember that the artist is judged by his handling of the instrument, and not the other way around. The best organists are part of an old, yes, but still living tradition — one in which they work with their instruments to create beautiful music, and don’t fight the very machine they’re playing. And they don’t resent it for its many foibles and problems; that’s what makes it a unique experience. Sure, it may not draw as big of a crowd as your whiz-bang star-fests, but that’s not what they’re in it for. We organists are stodgy and proud. And we don’t hate you, either. Picture a trained seal running for elected office. Sure, it’s cute, undeniably talented, and plenty entertaining; it’s just not the sort of messenger you’d choose to represent the intricacies and difficulties of a deep and beautiful world.
Yours,

Jake Street

Jacob Street, from North Reading, Massachusetts, graduated summa cum laude from College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. As the organ scholar of the class of 2010, he studied with James David Christie. Street is pursuing a Master of Music in Historical Performance at Oberlin, where he has studied organ with Olivier Latry and James David Christie, harpsichord with Webb Wiggins, and clavichord with David Breitman. Currently, he holds the position of Minister of Music at Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Cleveland.

Street has been a prizewinner in national and inter-national organ competitions, and was recently accepted as a semifinalist in the upcoming Jurow International Harpsichord Competition. He has had the opportunity to study, compete, and perform in several European countries, including Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Luxembourg, and Estonia. In 2006, under the direction of Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Julian Kuerti, Street played the organ with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for about three and a half measures in the last two minutes of a Tchaikovsky symphony. He has been named one of ten Rubin Fellows who will participate in Oberlin’s Rubin Institute for Music Criticism in January.

Published on ClevelandClassical.com January 3, 2012

Lady Gaga’s meat dress is now on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. What a shame that the matching headpiece, clutch, and heels (also made of raw meat) to the sirloin sensation that the pop singer wore to an awards ceremony in 2010 didn’t make it to the exhibit. I guess a morals-challenging raw meat concoction is what it takes to get people talking in the 21st century. It also appears that not everyone hated it because people are actually making their way to the museum to get a look at the newly taxidermied dress, which now, in effect, looks nothing like what the idiosyncratic singer actually wore that day.

This is the type of century we live in, whether you find it revolting or intriguing. Social networks define human interaction; it is the age of digital media and a booming pop culture. It is a time where people aren’t afraid to express themselves and controversy is no longer an element of surprise. How, then, does a world-renowned classical pianist wearing a mini skirt on stage fit into all of this?

Despite her ever-blossoming international career, superhuman technique, luscious sound, quickly growing album collection, and recent Grammy award nomination, what people mostly talk about nowadays when hearing the name “Yuja Wang” is her affinity for tight, short dresses and stilettos. The beautiful 24-year old pianist is not to be blamed for her natural girly inclinations toward flattering dresses that tickle her feminine fancy, but grace the concert hall with those and you have the critics raving. Many audiences and critics do not find Wang’s shoulder and thigh-revealing numbers a suitable garnish to a program of Scriabin etudes or Rachmaninoff’s .

The zesty orange dress and glittery gold heels (open toe-sandals, might I add) that the pianist wore to her recent Hollywood Bowl performance in August of 2011 stirred up the emotions of critics and audiences, touching off a marathon of reviews and blogs filled with mixed reactions and questions of decency. The piece suited a simmering California summer’s night, but Wang also looked ready for a fun time out in Hollywood after playing—a two-in-one function dress for the night, perhaps. Audiences gaped, wondering, “what,” “why,” “how,” and “seriously?”

I say, “So what?”

Had Yuja Wang stood next to Lady Gaga or Beyoncé during one of their own concerts, she would have looked nothing out of the ordinary. It is true, nonetheless, that pop music and classical music thrive in completely different realms, each a different ball game with its own set of rules and uniforms. As a classical musician, Wang definitely lingered at the borderlines of typical dress in her field. It is unfair, however, to judge the length of the hemline as inversely proportional to the competence or integrity of the performer. She’s young, fashion-forward, and has a flattering figure that fits into those snug outfits like a glove. What Wang was wearing was certainly a shocker at first, but only because it was unconventional in terms of what you usually see a female pianist wear on stage. Regardless, it was a festive outfit that showed off that she is a young and confident woman.

As the parameters of “propriety” and “exposure” in dress for women have gradually loosened over time, it is interesting to contemplate what actually defines the perfect mix of “appropriate” and “aesthetically pleasing” on the classical concert stage. Had Wang worn a burka instead, would audiences have criticized her for being too covered up? The visual aspect in a musical performance is an unavoidable part of the concert experience, whether it be for better or for worse.

In technical terms, did this potentially hazardous outfit atop sky-high stilettos detract from the quality of Wang’s performance? That Wang did not lose her balance when pedaling (or even when strutting onstage) and still showed comfort and mobility while storming up and down the keyboard in a form-fitting number is an admirable feat in itself. LA Times critic Mark Swed had a handful of adulations about Wang’s performance that night of the grueling 3rd Concerto of Rachmaninoff. He talked about how she actually shone in the most difficult of passages and never lost her cool and poise. The young virtuoso’s wardrobe “malfunction,” in the eyes of some, actually presented no malfunction at all. The only malfunction lay in the audience members who couldn’t shift focus from what she was wearing to what she was playing. Clearly, she is capable of delivering top-notch performances whether she is dressed in a mini skirt or not.

Anything arousing or provocative that pokes at conventional norms or shakes up the status quo immediately initiates a defensive reaction in people. But is it a crime for a classical artist to be—dare I say the word—sexy? Is it possible for “sexy” and “classical music” to go hand in hand?

That her wardrobe lies outside of traditional dress is a symbol of the new generation of the concert artist. To be a young professional in an art form that is dominated by custom and tradition, definitely creates friction. Classical music is a ritualistic art by nature, where people of the 21st century are still captivated by and are actively in pursuit of the music of composers who died even centuries ago. People are still playing Mozart and Brahms in a generation where Schoenberg’s twelve-tone row is something of the past and Lady Gaga reigns as the diva supreme. It is also an inevitable fact that the present-day ambassadors of classical music are living in such a 21st century, and that the new generation of classical musicians are ones who grew up listening to rap and electro alongside Bach and Bruckner on their iPods. Because of this coexistence between the “old and the new,” performance practices, musical interpretation, music research, music education, concert-going practices, the concert hall—all of these elements are constantly undergoing change.

Yuja Wang is a fresh, young ambassador of classical music in the midst of an ever-changing, modernizing culture. A flirtatious orange dress should not be seen as a faux pas, but as another expression of the pianist as a person alongside her music. She rocked the look. She “Rach-ed” the music. What is there to complain about? Besides, no poor cow was sacrificed in the process.

Photo: Yuja Wang taking a bow after playing Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto at the Hollywood Bowl. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times.

Susan Lee, born and raised in Los Angeles, California, finds that service and performance have always gone hand in hand. The 22-year-old pianist began training with her mother at age 5, and volunteered and performed in retirement homes across L.A. during her high school years.

At the Oberlin Conservatory, where she is a piano performance scholarship student with Professor Haewon Song, Lee has taught private piano lessons for students in the Conservatory and College of Arts and Sciences, as well as community members, since her freshman year. Her teaching and volunteering experience also includes tutoring math at Oberlin’s Prospect Elementary School.

As a performer, Lee has won numerous competitions throughout Southern California and has participated in master classes with renowned pianists such as Menahem Pressler, André Laplante, and Daniel Epstein, among others. During the summers, Susan has participated in the ARIA International Summer Academy, the Toronto Summer Music Academy and Festival, and the Casalmaggiore International Festival in Italy. She has been named one of ten Rubin Fellows who will participate in Oberlin’s Rubin Institute for Musical Criticism in January.

Published on ClevelandClassical.com January 3, 2012

The culture of barbershop music is in peril. Many readers may be puzzled by the notion of any kind of modern barbershop culture, let alone one that’s seen better days, but trust me, it’s out there.

Today, about 30,000 people across the world make up the men’s barbershop community alone, including representation in New Zealand, Sweden, Great Britain, Japan, and many other countries, and even more women sing barbershop music than men do. But as the men and women who participate in barbershop music-making have gotten older and begun to die off, barbershop music organizations have begun to make recruitment of new and particularly young “barbershoppers” a top priority.

One job that some barbershoppers feel is related to this recruitment work is the responsibility to preserve the barbershop style in its purest form. As the early Barbershop Harmony Society grew, preservation of its musical style quickly became one of its chief goals. But what exactly is barbershop? What isn’t it?

The codification of barbershop is in some ways helpful and in some ways limiting. Some feel that these restrictions are necessary for barbershop’s perceived purity to remain strong, while others feel that the barbershop style must make musical changes in hopes of attracting young adults. As in any kind of artistic culture, there is a seemingly never-ending battle between the traditionalists who adhere to the rules and the young bucks who prefer to bend and break them. Perhaps a little history is in order.

Barbershop music began in the African American community around the 1890s. Young black men and boys could be found informally singing in quartets and harmonizing popular songs of the day. Soon, vaudeville got wind of this potential showpiece, and the barbershop quartet became a not-so-vaguely racist feature of the variety show. Eventually, however, the barbershop fad faded, and it was not until decades later that it really saw resurgence.

O.C. Cash and Rupert Hall, two businessmen from Tulsa, met on a business trip to Kansas City in 1938. They got to talking fondly about the music of their childhood, and reminiscing about the pre-war innocence for which they yearned. They had the idea of starting a club where like-minded men could gather to harmonize and chat about the old times. When the two got back to Tulsa, they organized a meeting on the rooftop of a hotel, inviting friends and coworkers to spend an afternoon singing. Twenty-six men attended. Poking fun at the New Deal’s “Alphabet Agencies”, they called their new organization “The Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing In America,” or SPEBSQSA (pronounced “spehb-skwuh”). In the next few years, chapters began popping up all over the country as SPEBSQSA grew beyond what Cash and Hall had ever imagined.

Since that time, barbershop music has been important to American popular culture to varying degrees, but barbershop does not exist in a bubble, and some stylistic elements have changed. Barbershop arrangers are influenced heavily by vocal jazz, the African American spiritual, and other kinds of vocal and instrumental music, sometimes reaching outside the prescribed palette of barbershop chords to spice up their arrangements. More modern popular songs such as “Eight Days a Week” by The Beatles, “Desperado” by The Eagles, and “Surfer Girl” by The Beach Boys are appearing on the barbershop contest stage, their melodies re-harmonized to fit expectations of the barbershop style. Arranging embellishments are getting wilder and wilder as dramatic endings to songs are getting higher and higher.

These trends worry the traditionalists, who tend to place the ideal of preservation above all else, asking, “What would O.C. Cash think of the state of our Society today?” Arrangements of songs given the barbershop treatment other than those popular in the 1930s and before make these old-timers shake their heads and thoughtfully stroke their mustaches. Of course, most barbershoppers alive today aren’t old enough to really remember the 1930s, but the rose-colored ideal exists in their minds nonetheless.

What these people forget is that the black quartets of the late 1800s who originated the style were more interested in having fun, trying new things, and harmonizing the songs they knew than they were concerned with rules of what was and was not allowed. The traditionalist ideal of barbershop as pure and definite is often based on a misunderstanding (or at least a misframing) of the music’s history. Admittedly, these people don’t tend to see style change as inherently connected to the decline of barbershop singing, but it’s about time they woke up and smelled the coffee. Their greatest musical love is in crisis! Doesn’t clinging to a false past seem a little petty compared to preparing for a brighter future in this context?

Then we have the boat-rockers, the more experimental barbershoppers who are not afraid of more modern dissonances every now and then. They tend to be more formally trained in music, leading them to look down on their more traditional brothers in song. Many of them see barbershop as something that could be updated, fearing that unless barbershop music does something big to keep up with the times, it may die away. They think, “We can’t change the fact that young people just won’t ‘get’ more traditional barbershop music, but we can change our music to be more like theirs!”

But the free-thinkers forget that teenagers are really good at detecting insincerity. They would rather see the old guys get genuinely excited about something than be pandered to. Beyond that, singing a song by The Beatles or even Michael Jackson does not speak to this generation in the way that the old guys think it will. As one self-proclaimed traditionalist arranger once said (not without a little sass), “The college quartets I know like to sing ‘Coney Island Baby’,” a barbershop song so iconic of the style it was once parodied on Family Guy. Barbershoppers generally misunderstand young people and youth culture, assuming that they have to change the very things that make their music attractive and exotic to the younger crowd.

It is true that barbershop music is in peril, but getting stricter about the rules won’t do any good unless there are people under the age of 70 interested in singing the music. On the other hand, potential new barbershoppers will be more impressed by friendly, honest members and good singing than by a few jazz chords. So leave morality out of the argument and write music that is fun to sing. Some deviations from the rules won’t delete the past, nor will it change the things that barbershoppers love about their art. The really central elements to the barbershop style will stand the test of time not because they are strictly enforced but because they are genuinely appealing and are the things that attracted barbershoppers in the first place. So, what would O.C. Cash think of today’s Society? He’d probably just want to do some singing.

Chad Putka is a vocalist from Worthington, Ohio, who enjoys performing a wide range of styles, from 19th century romantic fare to 1970s pop. Putka’s first and greatest love, however, is barbershop music. Someday, he hopes to study this uniquely American culture and art form as a professor of musicology, and is already teaching others as an instructor in Oberlin’s Experimental College program.

As a performer, Chad loves to sing in choirs, solo performance, and in quartets. He is studying with Gerald Crawford in preparation for a voice recital this spring and sings regularly with the Columbus-based Alliance of Greater Central Ohio, a barbershop chorus that recently placed 8th in international rankings. He is also a long-time member, soloist, arranger, and Official Liaison and Tour Manager with the Obertones, Oberlin’s all-male contemporary a cappella group. His own group, Three Dudes and a Guy, is preparing for competition in April, hoping to qualify for this summer’s Harmony Foundation Collegiate Barbershop Quartet Competition in Portland, Oregon.

Chad will complete a Bachelor of Arts in Musical Studies with a minor in Anthropology in May. He has been named one of ten Rubin Fellows who will participate in Oberlin’s Rubin Institute for Musical Criticism in January.

Published on ClevelandClassical.com January 3, 2012

C.P.E. Bach’s Solfeggio in C Minor is not a difficult piece for the classical pianist. During my middle school years, it was both technically and musically challenging, but now, with more developed technique, I find the piece is easily playable at the composer’s fast tempo markings. As an experiment, I played the piece for my friend, an occasional classical music listener who mainly listens to music of the non-classical genre. He listened intently to my purposefully obscene performance of the piece — faster than Bach’s demands and replete with missing notes and ignored editorial marks. The music made almost no sense, but he was amazed.

Later, I sent him a recording of Georgian pianist Eliso Virsaladze’s dark and sensitive performance of the second movement of Prokofiev’s second piano sonata. “It sounds like she is playing wrong notes…but she isn’t,” he remarked, reacting to the movement’s dissonance. After explaining to him that it was both technically and musically difficult, he said, “I still think Solfeggio sounds harder.” In a moment, all the years of work at the piano since I studied Bach’s piece flashed through my mind. Are notes all that people hear?

What does any listener hear when he listens to classical piano music? If he is acquainted with the classical music genre but is not a pianist, he may hear melodies, harmonies, a wicked number of notes, and fast passagework. This listener may also pick up on subtleties like voicing, color changes, and relationships in tempo. The pianist, a different kind of listener, will hear all of these as well as deeper, more complex subtleties, and he may begin to dissect the performance, reacting to both what he likes and what he questions.

In a culture in which the majority of the population does not listen to classical music, what does the casual listener hear? He may have encountered classical music at times, either in kindergarten at nap time when his teacher played recordings of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, or in his beginning instrument lessons that were likely dropped by high school, leaving him little time to begin to explore the classical canon of his instrument, or even at an operatic or symphonic performance. He may hear classical music on NPR late at night, and may even be vaguely aware of the use of classical music in film and television. But this listener is bombarded with popular music on all fronts, endlessly hearing it on the radio, on TV, in office buildings, in stores, or reading about it in magazines.

This listener should not be condemned, as he is simply a product of the modern age. Neither is this to say that one type of listener is better or more sophisticated than the other. He who listens only to classical music has the ability to cradle large works in his ears — sonatas or symphonies that last more than forty minutes — whereas he may find the three or four minute pop song boring and repetitive. Similarly, he who listens only to popular music can appreciate and understand its directness, short in length and usually assertive in musical gesture, whereas he may view prolonged classical music as drole and pretentious drivel. Because most modern Americans identify with the popular music listener, the classical pianist must examine this type of listener’s reaction to one facet of classical music, the gargantuan repertoire for piano.

What does the popular music listener hear when he hears a classical piano piece? Because the piano is such a versatile instrument, present in almost all types of music, he immediately recognizes its timbre. He may pontificate on the beauty and/or meaning of the music, but will only view the fastest fingerwork as difficult. Even a trill or a turn, two gestures that are simple for most pianists when compared to more multi-faceted concepts like sound production and energy conservation, will come across as more impressive and skillful than even the most well-phrased line or a series of perfectly-voiced chords. Every pianist has had the experience of impressing “mainstreamed” audiences more with his scale or arpeggio warm-up than with his pristine performance of a slow movement of a Mozart or Beethoven sonata.

A YouTube search of “America’s Got Talent piano” yielded a spectrum of results from the only American television show that allows a person to audition with any type of performance, regardless of discipline. The results were as expected: dozens of pianists playing hundreds of fast passages, both improvisatory and pre-existing, inaccurately and unmusically. The sidebar of related videos informed me that this was not an American phenomenon: the Norwegian, Chinese, and British equivalents of America’s Got Talent showcased people playing poor arrangements of national songs, people playing piano with their toes, and audiences cheering nanoseconds after the “pianist” began to play the runs that classical pianists use to warm up every day.

Another YouTube video titled “The Next Mozart? 6-Year Old Piano Prodigy Wows All” posted in 2008 by WGN, a news station in Chicago, features Emily Bear, a young pianist of Rockford, Illinois studying at the Chicago Institute of Music. The video claims that Bear, who was “discovered by her grandmother at the age of two,” “writes her own music”, and both she and the reporter compare her to Mozart. However, when she played her own compositions in the video, only simple chord progressions and hackneyed melodies (the kind you might use to try out a piano you’ve never played) emerged from her instrument. But, when the non-classical listener hears this music, does he hear music comparable to that of Mozart? Mozart was redefining music harmonically and structurally at Emily Bear’s age; but the video hails Emily’s primitive improvisations as the next great works of the piano canon. While this young musician may be a budding pianist, the media’s reaction to this situation poses innumerable problems, both cultural and musicological.

But who am I to point fingers at or discredit the work of musicians who are not like me? It is not the fault of these musicians that many modern-day listeners have lost the ability to understand skill and artistry in piano music, but the modern situation poses a dilemma for the classical pianist: is he still relevant?

Studying at a classical music conservatory alongside peers who understand what their fellow students do can be misleading. In a way, we are living in a false microcosm of the world and have convinced ourselves that what we do is important.

And for me, it is. But there are days when the pianist’s mind begins to wonder as he nears his sixth hour of practice. He imagines playing Solfeggioin C Minor on America’s Got Talent at stupid speed, becoming an overnight sensation for audiences who have never heard the likes of Horowitz, Uchida, or Argerich. He then turns back to the daunting task of perfecting the second movement of a Prokofiev sonata, working on something so subtle that it may be of no importance at all outside a few relatively small circles. He knows the competitiveness of the world he is entering, and he asks himself if it is really worth it.

19-year-old Matthew Young of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, is honored and thrilled to be participating in The Rubin Institute for Music Criticism! Young, who is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and a Bachelor of Arts in English or Creative Writing at Oberlin, has won several competitions and scholarships in Florida, and was invited to perform chamber music with other young musicians at the inaugural Emerging Young Artists Summer Music Festival at Friday Musicale. In summer 2011, he attended Spain’s Valencia International Piano Academy where he studied with Julian Martin, Hamish Milne, and Yong Hi Moon. Young is also interested in reading and writing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and songs, as well as singing. He has been named one of ten Rubin Fellows who will participate in Oberlin’s Rubin Institute for Musical Criticism in January.

Published on ClevelandClassical.com December 27, 2011.