Review: Live stream from Oberlin: “Poetic Music for Oboe, Viola, and Piano” with Michael Strauss, Roger Roe, R. Kent Cook & T.S. McMillin (February 7)

by Daniel Hathaway

Newly appointed Oberlin viola professor Michael Strauss, who was previously principal violist of the Indianapolis Symphony, has devised an intriguing chamber music program for the unusual combination of viola, oboe and piano which has recently been toured and will be recorded later this week in the conservatory’s Clonick Hall for release as a CD.

The program was presented on Thursday evening in Kulas Hall, when Strauss joined his long-time chamber music colleagues, oboist Roger Roe of the Indianapolis Symphony and pianist R. Kent Cook of Illinois Wesleyan University, in four works by one relatively well-known and three pretty obscure late nineteenth and early twentieth century Romantic composers. The concert, entitled “Poetic Music for Oboe, Viola and Piano”, was enhanced by poetry that inspired each work read by Oberlin English professor T.S. McMillin. I attended the performance virtually thanks to Oberlin’s new “Listen Live” streaming service.