Oberlin College Conservatory hosts Baroque Performing Institute

OBERLIN — The melodic sounds of the work of composer John Stanley coming from Jamie Ondrusek's Baroque flute waft through a small classroom at Oberlin College's Conservatory of Music. Six others are watching, including internationally known flutist Michael Lynn. Lynn's job is to critique Ondrusek's performance in this master class, part of Oberlin's 53rd Baroque Performance Institute. While the work sounds exquisite, Lynn, retired professor of Baroque flute and recorder at the conservatory, finds a few areas in which Ondrusek doesn't quite capture the composer's intricate notes. "You were pretty good," Lynn told Ondrusek, 60, of Prescott, Arizona, Wednesday at one point during a masterclass before offering advice to Ondrusek on raising his elbow slightly and repositioning his fingers to sharpen the musical notes he's playing. As the 30-minute session nears an end, Ondrusek played a segment of Stanley's Opus 1 again, receiving applause from Lynn and the other students. "That was better," Lynn complimented Ondrusek, who nodded his acceptance as if to say "I get it now." Afterward, Ondrusek discussed the joy of learning to master the Baroque flute, an instrument made of wood as opposed to modern metal flutes. He has attended the institute for a decade under Lynn's guidance. He called Lynn a "partner in discovery" on his musical journey. "It's a fantastic opportunity. Where else are you going to learn this? We have the benefit of people who have had a lifetime of work and they give us an advantage. We get to start a little bit further along instead of having to reinvent the wheel," said Ondrusek, a content designer for Microsoft who plays both modern and Baroque flute with musical groups in Arizona. Ondrusek is one of about 80 students from through the United States and Ontario who are learning the finer points of Baroque music, voice and dance during the two-weeklong institute, which opened June 15. It's one of a limited number of such programs for musicians to immerse themselves in Baroque culture. The Baroque era flourished from the early 17th century until the 1750s influencing music, dance, sculpture, painting, architecture and other arts. Students play reproductions of Baroque-era instruments such as the flute, harpsichord, violin, viola, viol/viola da gamba, cello and oboe. Other master classes focus on voice and dance. Lynn, 71, teaches flute and recorder. He is one of about two dozen institute faculty members, most affiliated with the conservatory and a few from other institutions. He has performed in countless venues including with the American Baroque Ensemble throughout the U.S. and Japan, Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, Apollo's Fire, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Smithsonian Chamber Player and Houston Symphony and at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Beyond the classroom, he maintains a wide-ranging collection of historical flutes, which is the focus of his website, originalflutes.com. The native of northwest Pennsylvania also shares his knowledge through self-produced online instructional and performance videos. "One of our goals (at the institute) is we try to feed participants as much information as they can take in so they can get home and practice what we are telling them," Lynn said. He described how performing Baroque music is a way for a musician to make music more expressive, saying "the composer is presenting a sketch of pieces where the details are expressed by the performer." "I think listeners respond to that. It allows individual players to do things differently," he added. In the last decade or so the institute has evolved to welcome a greater number of promising high school musicians to learn alongside pre-professionals. "We always considered that a positive aspect, valuing diversity," Lynn said. "In a way we're proselytizing, trying to bring people into the family who appreciate this style of music." Harrison Bieschke, 17, of Lebanon, Tennessee, participated in the voice masterclass under James Taylor, professor in the practice of voice at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music in New Haven, Connecticut. Having the opportunity to work with well-known faculty is what attracted him to Oberlin's summer institute, the teen said. "It's elegant singing for enjoyment. I'm learning performance and it will help as I look to become a professional performer." Catharina Meints, professor of viola da gamba and cello at Oberlin, helped launch the institute with her late husband James Caldwell in 1972. At the time, programs for studying and performing Baroque music in a specialized setting were uncommon so the couple set out to create a way for musicians to learn and explore the genre in the U.S. after participating in programs in Europe. Playing Baroque instruments requires different skills than playing modern instruments, she said. "It's simply easier to play this music on the instrument that's appropriate, a Baroque instrument. It's simply easier to do what you want to do musically than it is on a modern instrument," she said. The two-week immersion in Baroque arts is unlike anything most participants have ever done in their musical pursuits, said Kenneth Slowik, the institute's artistic director since 1993. He sees the institute as a way for musical performers to add skills to their repertoire. Slowik, who is curator of the Musical Instrument Collection at the National Museum of American History and artistic director of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society, developed this year's institute theme, Music in England from Purcell to Handel. His challenge is to enable participants — faculty and students — to play "interesting" music in weekend concerts. "The idea is of infecting the nest when they go back to wherever they are and take a little bit of BPI with them, I think, is the most important thing that we have," Slowik said. For students and faculty both, institute days are long. Classes begin as early as 8 a.m. and run as long two hours. Participants rehearse well into the night in preparation for the next day's master classes and for weekend performances. Faculty members perform both Fridays at 8 p.m. during the institute. The concerts will feature music by Henry Purcell and George Frideric Handel in the conservatory's Warner Concert Hall. Tickets are $10 for non-institute participants. Students perform chamber music in various locales in the conservatory on both Saturday afternoons. Contact Dennis Sadowski at sadowski.dennis@gmail.com. IF YOU GO WHAT: Baroque Performing Institute concerts WHEN: 8 p.m. to and June and 27 WHERE: Tonight: Kulas Recital Hall June 27: Warner Concert Hall, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, 77 W. College St.TICKETS: $10 at the door