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Oberlin Conservatory's Modern Music Guild presents Fonema Consort

Pictures of an Exhibition presents works based on visuals, whether a painting (Richard Barrett), drawing (Pablo Chin), photographs (Louis Nielson) or sculpture (Bethany Younge). In Barrett’s Coigitum (based on a painting with the same title by surrealist Chilean Roberto Matta), the subject of social oppression tied to the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in the painter's home country inspired the troublesome figures in the visuals and the severe demands on the performers in Barrett's piece. Similarly motivated, former Oberlin faculty Lewis Nielson's new piece for Fonema will be informed by photographs from the build-up to the US civil war focusing on liberationists like John Brown, and twentieth century civil rights leaders like Patrice Lulumba and Malcom X. Chin's piece is derived from musical transcriptions of various segments from a drawing by New York-based artist Theresa Chong. The concert will also feature the premiere of a piece by former Nielson's and Barrett's student and Chicago-based composer Bethany Younge, whose work features deep-rooted feminist undertones.

Program
Richard Barrett | Coïgitum
Lewis Nielson | nos qui captivos duxerunt*
Bethany Younge | bodyscape*
Pablo Chin | A Rayas y Cuadros

*world premiere