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Photo Credit: John Seyfried
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The campus welcomed back Oberlin’s 60th and 10th cluster classes with special reunion activities during Homecoming Weekend 2022. View more photos from the weekend, including the tailgate and Oberlin football game vs. Kenyon College, in this Flickr gallery.
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The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and Oberlin College & Conservatory, along with the Global Foundation for the Performing Arts (GFPA), announced a new partnership in September dedicated to expanding international student access to world-class academic and musical instruction. Oberlin is one of a small number of U.S. institutions of higher education invited to take part in the initiative—and the only partner focused on undergraduate study. A concert at Carnegie Hall on December 2, before the 77th UN General Assembly, will mark the beginning of this partnership and features Oberlin Conservatory orchestra and choral ensembles. The program includes Adolphus Hailstork’s Fanfare on “Amazing Grace,” Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It will be led by Oberlin Professor of Conducting Raphael Jiménez. The evening’s soloists feature Oberlin Conservatory alumni mezzo-soprano Kathryn Leemhuis ’05 and tenor Joshua Blue ’16.
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Tickets On Sale Now for Oberlin Conservatory appearance at Carnegie Hall in January 2023
Just seven weeks after performing in New York City for the UN General Assembly, Oberlin students will again return to the stage of Carnegie Hall. On January 20, the Oberlin Orchestra, joined by voices from the Oberlin College Choir, Oberlin Gospel Choir, and Musical Union will perform 1908 Oberlin Conservatory alumnus R. Nathaniel Dett’s “The Ordering of Moses.” Alumni soloists performing with the student ensembles will be soprano Chabrelle Williams ’09 and tenor Limmie Pulliam ’98. Buy tickets for the concert using Oberlin alumni discount code ALU39878 for 25% off.
Can’t attend? A rave-worthy performance of the program was given in Finney Chapel on October 13 and delivered via livestream. Watch it online.
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Photo Credit: Tanya Rosen-Jones ’97
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Vice President and Dean of Students Karen Goff looks back on her first year at Oberlin, a year of change and transitions. The Division of Student Affairs spent considerable time assessing student needs, realigning divisional structure, and engaging in active listening throughout the campus community with an ultimate goal of enhancing the overall student experience.
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- Scott Branson’s new book Practical Anarchism: A Guide For Daily Life (Pluto Books) was launched at a live streamed event on October 24. Branson talked with Vicky Osterweil, the author of In Defense of Looting.
- Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Shuming Chen recently published “Photochemical Dearomative Cycloadditions of Quinolines and Alkenes: Scope and Mechanism Studies,” in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Coauthors include Sam Le ’22 as well as collaborators from UCLA, the University of Indiana, and the University of Munster, Germany.
- Assistant Professor of Dance Al Evangelista participated and presented in two panels at the Dance Studies Association annual conference. The two panels titled, “Dancing in the Aftermath of Anti-Asian Hate” and “Acts of Tribute, Practices of Citation: Recognition as Resistance to Cultures of Individualism” took place October 13-16 in Vancouver, BC.
- An excerpt from David Forrest’s book A Voice but No Power was published in the latest issue of Social Policy, a magazine for community and labor organizers.
- Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Allegra Hyde published an essay in The Rumpus. Titled “Somewhere Over the Rainbow: A Search for Transcendence and Annihilation in New Zealand’s Hippie Paradise,” the essay explores how living in hippie communes shaped her identity as a person and as a writer.
- Professor Stiliana Milkova’s book Storia delle prime volte is published this week in Italy by the Italian publisher Voland. Written in Italian, it is a book of ten short stories about characters who live between languages, continents, and cultures, negotiating their transnational and nomadic identities.
- Ana Cristina Perry, assistant professor of art history, had an interview published in “The Brooklyn Rail” with Raphael Montañez Ortiz, an internationally renowned Brooklyn-born Puerto Rican artist and educator who grew up in New York City and founder of El Museo del Barrio.
- Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Lisa Ryno was recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation, “Sugar-mediated remodeling of the E. coli transcriptome and its impact on biofilm growth and composition.”
- Peter Slowik gave the world premiere of four new compositions for solo viola in a concert at Old South Church in Boston on October 22. All told, twelve new compositions were premiered by three violists, Slowik was joined by his former student Daniel Orsen ’16 and Jordan Bak.
- Associate Professor of Computer Science Cynthia Taylor gave a talk and was on a panel for the “STEM in the Art Museum: Teaching Skills and Content through Art” Symposium at Yale University on October 14. The symposium was organized by Liliana Milkova, formerly the Curator of Academic Programs at the Allen Memorial Art Museum.
- Drew Wilburn continued his work with the third-grade classes at Oberlin Elementary School, sharing information about archaeology. For the past 5 years, with a small pandemic break, Professor Wilburn has worked with the third-grade team as they explore the IB curriculum, “Who we are in Space and Time.”
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Photo courtesy of MacArthur Foundation
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Kiese Laymon ’98, a writer and educator whose works chronicle the Black experience through the lens of his Mississippi upbringing, was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow for 2022, one of the nation’s most prestigious and lucrative honors.
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Photo Credit: Tatiana Daubek
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Parker Ramsay ’15 Releases Second Album
After his acclaimed 2020 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations for harp, Parker Ramsay ’15 has now released his second album for King’s College, Cambridge. The harpist and Oberlin organ and Historical Performance alumnus performs “The Street” by composer Nico Muhly and librettist Alice Goodman. This new work for harp solo, narration, and plainchant is based on the Fourteen Stations of the Cross.
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Photo courtesy of Cleveland Orchestra
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The Cleveland Orchestra to Release an Album Dedicated to Music by George Walker
On November 4, the Cleveland Orchestra (TCO) is releasing an album of music by composer and Oberlin alumnus George Walker ’41. Between October 2020 and March 2022, Franz Welser-Most and the orchestra recorded Walker’s “Antifonys,” Sinfonias Nos. 4 and 5, and “Lilacs” for voice and orchestra, with soprano Latonia Moore. Available in both digital and physical editions, the CD includes observations from Welser-Most along with program notes and photographs of the performances. The digital version will be available on all major music streaming platforms.
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Photo courtesy of Maurice Cohn
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Double Degree Alum Makes Conducting Debut
Maurice Cohn ’17 made his conducting debut for a series of concerts with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra October 21-23. He led performances of Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto, with soloist Helene Grimaud and of Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra. He earned a stellar review in the Cincinnati Business Courier. Cohn is currently the Assistant Conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
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