Oberlin is a little town south west of Cleveland, Ohio, USA. In this little town is Oberlin College. Part of this college is a very established music conservatory. In 2008, the conservatory held its 37th Baroque Performance Institute, an event dedicated to the study and performance of baroque music. This year's theme was " Music in Paris, 1632-1764: from the birth of Lully until the death of Rameau".I was invited by Catherina Meints (who I met in Hawaii) and Kenneth Slowik to present lecture recital based on my thesis "Le Sieur de Machy and the French Solo Viol Tradition". Details on this recital are available on older posts in the blog.
I had the opportunity take part in many viol masterclasses by Catherina Meints. Here are some pictures from when I played La Boisson by Antoine Forqueray (1672-1745), possibly the most difficult piece ever written for the viol. As you can see, from my extremely relaxed attire, Oberlin was really nice and warm. The conservatory was however freezing!
Here you can see Catherina Meints demonstrating a passage from the Forqueray piece I just played. She is playing an original bass viol by Nicolas Bertrand. She also owns a wonderful collection of original instruments. I managed to visit her home and play some of the viols in the collection.More details on my trip in the next post.