Although the first World War ended 100 years ago, a lot of emotions still permeate our collective memory of the monumental conflict. These emotions were channeled through music when Oberlin Conservatory hosted the two-day public event “Creative Arts and Music in the Shadow of War: Commemorating the Centenary of World War I.” The event included several activities around campus to memorialize the end of the war, including four concerts, a panel presentation at the Conservatory, and an exhibition at the Allen Memorial Art Museum. Commemorating the Centenary was the brainchild of Professor of Violin Sibbi Bernhardsson, OC ’95, whose favorite period of music is the early 20th century — especially the music written...

When I went to attend the Oberlin Improvisation and New Music Collective’s latest performance at the Birenbaum Innovation and Performance Space on Wednesday night, I had no idea what to expect. I had never seen the OINC before, and when I thought of improv shows, I imagined fast-paced jokes on a dimly-lit stage or silly songs composed on the fly — the sorts of things that friends sometimes do together when everyone is bored and has had a little too much to drink. The OINC’s performance was unlike anything I had imagined. The show consisted of two main acts. The first improvisation was carried out by two musicians, who used synthesizers to engineer a variety of innovative sounds together. These were not songs ...

In spring 2015, the Oberlin College Gear Co-op, then still a fledgling organization with little more than a few beat-up drum sets and some old amps, hosted the first edition of Gear Fest, a mammoth day-long festival that featured 22 different acts at two different locations. The event has since been enshrined as a biannual staple of the Gear Co-op, which will host the fourth edition of Gear Fest tomorrow. “I think the first year it was in someone’s backyard, and was just a really great, fun way to close out the year,” College sophomore and Gear Co-op head Cena Loffredo wrote in an email to the Review. The Gear Co-op itself was formed as a solution to a common problem for musicians on campus — practice spac...

Vijay Iyer is a world-renowned jazz pianist and composer who has also written music for various classical and electronic ensembles. Iyer visited Oberlin last weekend to attend a workshop performance of his new violin concerto, titled Trouble, by Oberlin Sinfonietta ahead of its worldwide premiere at Ojai Music Festival June 8. The piece featured violin soloist Jennifer Koh, OC ’97. Iyer and Koh also held a residency that included several master classes and discussions. Iyer graduated from Yale Universit...