Rebecca Achtenberg
Rebecca Achtenberg is a fifth-year double-degree voice and comparative literature major at Oberlin College and Conservatory.
Candy Chang
Candy Chang is a junior flute performance major and historical performance (Baroque flute) minor at the Oberlin Conservatory, studying under Alexa Still and Michael Lynn. Hailing from Seattle, she has won numerous competitions including the Seattle Horsfall Competition, the Simon-Fiset Scholarship Woodwind Competition, and Performing Arts Festival of the Eastside. In addition, she was a national finalist at the Music Teachers National Association Competition and took second place at the Alexander and Buono International Flute competition. Notable performances include an appearance on Classical King FM 98.1's Northwest Focus Live and a tour alongside eighth blackbird in Oberlin's Contemporary Music Ensemble. Candy has performed concertos with Seattle Festival Orchestra, Academy Chamber Orchestra, and Tacoma Concert Band. Committed to premiering new works, she has worked with more than 40 composers and has given the first performance of 55 compositions. Passionate in arts administration, Candy has also held internships with the Academy of Music Northwest, Maple Valley Youth Symphony, Green River Community College, Marrowstone-in-the-City, and Vivace Chamber Players. When not playing the flute, Candy is a budding pastry chef and avid golfer.
Nicole Gutman
Nicole Gutman is proud to be making her official music critic debut in ConNotations. She is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in music composition at Oberlin Conservatory. She enjoys writing reviews for her Introduction to Music Criticism Class with Mike Telin, Daniel Hathaway, and Donald Rosenberg. She has also written reviews for the Oberlin Review.
Monica Hunter-Hart
Monica Hunter-Hart is a senior English major from Northampton, Massachusetts. She spends most of her free time grooving in the Oberlin music scene, directing the steel drum band OSteel, playing in the Japanese drumming taiko ensemble OCTaiko, taking voice lessons and jazz piano lessons, and composing on piano and mandolin. Her short-term musical projects have ranged from endeavors with Javanese gamelan to directing the musical Into the Woods to leading a Led Zeppelin cover band. Recently she's discovered the joy of combining her two biggest interests—writing and music—through criticism. Her foremost goal while writing reviews is constructing convincing arguments. She works to ensure that the emotionality and joy of music is always present in her prose.
Daniel King
Daniel King is a senior voice major studying under Professor Salvatore Champagne at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. He is a native of Charleston, West Virginia, and has resided there his entire life. Daniel has performed in many productions by Oberlin Opera Theater, including as Cecco in Haydn’s Il Mondo Della Luna, Alfred in Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, and recently Lippo Fiorentino in Kurt Weill's Street Scene. He has won awards including first place in the WVMEA competition and first in the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra’s “Symphony Idol” competition. Other interests include restoring and fixing cars, hiking, and drawing.
Zoë Madonna
Zoë Madonna participated in the audience competition during the 2012 Rubin Institute, where all three of her reviews advanced to the final round. She so enjoyed the experience that she eagerly enrolled in the Oberlin Conservatory's Introduction to Music Criticism class. She went on to win first prize at the 2014 Rubin Institute in San Francisco in November. A fourth-year East Asian studies major, anthropology minor, and avid writer and photographer, Zoë spent a semester studying in Japan and hopes to pursue a career in Japanese-English translation. She has been singing, playing piano, and listening to music since her childhood in Maplewood, New Jersey, and she chose Oberlin for the myriad musical opportunities it offers all students. Outside of class, she can be found at Oberlin's many concerts, singing with the historical-music vocal ensemble Collegium Musicum, hosting a radio show on campus station WOBC, teaching contra dance, or playing the accordion at local Irish music gatherings and farmers' markets.
Daniel McGrew
Tenor Daniel McGrew is a Southern California native and fourth-year voice major at the Oberlin Conservatory. He studies with Professor Salvatore Champagne. At Oberlin, Daniel has sung several major roles with Oberlin Opera Theater, including the title role in Britten’s Albert Herring. He has also performed the role in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo in Arezzo, Italy, with the Oberlin in Italy Program. He has spent two winter terms in Boston studying and performing Bach’s vocal music at Emmanuel Music’s Bach Institute, and he is passionately engaged with the chamber music and song repertoires. Daniel holds positions in Oberlin’s offices of Human Resources and Conservatory Communications. He has been involved with music for film and television, and can be heard on the soundtracks of Battlestar Galactica and Superman Returns, among others. In 2010 he earned first prize in the Classical Singer Competition, and in 2011 he was honored at the White House as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts.
Elissa Pfaender
Elissa Pfaender, a soprano from Pewaukee, Wisconsin, is pursuing a vocal performance degree from Oberlin Conservatory in the studio of Professor Salvatore Champagne. At Oberlin, Elissa has sung the roles of Fiordiligi, Contessa Almaviva, Mireille, and Madame Pompous in Oberlin Opera Theater and the Opera Scenes program. She spent the past summer as a Young Artist at the CoOperative Program under Laura Brooks Rice and Christopher Arneson. Other musical accomplishments include receiving the Silver Award from the YoungArts Competition 2012 and winning the Chicago Classical NATS Competition in 2012. Elissa also was named a finalist for the Classical Singer Competition in 2012. She has worked with distinguished opera professionals such as Marilyn Horne, Dolora Zajick, Lisa Saffer, and Marlena Malas.
Jeremy Reynolds
Clarinetist Jeremy Reynolds began his musical studies at age 12 in Round Top, Texas. His high school education consisted of performing regularly with the Houston Youth Symphony, the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts Orchestra, Virtuosi of Houston, the American Festival for the Arts Orchestra, and the Round Top Festival Orchestra. During these years, he achieved recognition through winning local competitions including the Houston Young Artist Competition, Houston Youth Symphony Concerto Competition, the American Festival for the Arts Concerto Competition, and the Houston Civic Symphony Concerto Competition; additionally, he was runner-up with the Symphony North of Houston young artist competition and the Houston Symphony League Competition. Jeremy is in his fourth and final year at the Oberlin Conservatory, where he studies with Richard Hawkins. Since beginning his training at Oberlin, he has performed with orchestras from Seattle to Arezzo, Italy, and has developed an avid appreciation for chamber music. Reynolds is also pursuing a degree in English Literature at Oberlin College; he has enjoyed combining his two fields of study and hopes to pursue a career in arts administration or musical journalism after graduation.
Rachel Stanton
Rachel Stanton is in her final year at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, studying with Professor Sanford Margolis. Originally from Hawaii, she previously studied under Dr. Thomas Yee, Ellen Masaki, and Dr. Alan Ysac. Rachel has been featured in NPR’s From the Top, the Morning Music Club of Hawaii, and the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival. She has performed in master classes with renowned pianists such as Martin Canin, Norman Krieger, and Alain Jacquon, as well as others. Her accolades include top prizes at the Mozart Festival of Hawaii, the MTNA Competition, and the Aloha International Piano Competition. Rachel also served as vice president of “Save Our Symphony,” a non-profit organization to support the Honolulu Symphony. After graduating, she intends to pursue a career in arts administration.
Larry Dunn
Larry Dunn, a retired business executive and software engineer, has a lifelong love affair with music of many genres. His musical knowledge is largely self-taught from 50+ years of concert-going, listening to recordings, and related research. Larry is a Contributing Editor for I CARE IF YOU LISTEN (icareifyoulisten.com), the online journal of contemporary music, which received the 45th annual ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor Media Award for excellence in music journalism in 2013. He also frequently contributes "audience perspective" articles for ICEblog (iceorg.org/blog) on the website of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and maintains a personal blog at Acornometrics.tumblr.com. Larry and his wife Arlene, who is also his writing partner, participated as audience-critics in the inaugural Rubin Institute for Music Criticism at Oberlin College in January 2012. That started them writing about music and they haven't looked back since. Larry and Arlene reside at Kendal at Oberlin since June 2013.
Daniel Hautzinger
Daniel Hautzinger is a second-year Double Degree student studying History and Piano Performance under Alvin Chow at Oberlin College and Conservatory. A native of Chicago, he has interned for Andrew Patner, critic-at-large for 98.7 WFMT and Classical Music Critic for The Chicago Sun-Times, and hopes to eventually become a fixture of the Chicago arts scene as a music critic, performer, or arts administrator. Daniel is a staff writer for the arts section of The Oberlin Review, covering everything from cinema to visual arts, with a special focus on music. He wishes to vitalize classical music through the advocacy of new music, cross-cultural collaborations, audience expansion, and insightful, enjoyable writing.
Jarrett Hoffman
Jarrett Hoffman is a fourth-year, double-degree student at Oberlin College and Conservatory majoring in creative writing and clarinet performance. He studies clarinet with Richard Hawkins and has attended the Round Top and Marrowstone Music Festivals. He was also selected for the Oberlin Orchestra's and Contemporary Music Ensemble's January 2013 tour to Carnegie Hall and the DiMenna Center in New York City. His writing experiences have included studying fiction at the Juniper and New York State Summer Writers Institutes as well as writing for ClevelandClassical and The Oberlin Review.
Jarrett is also an avid soccer player and plays for the Oberlin club team, the Albino Squirrels. This spring he will be studying literature in London through the Danenberg Oberlin-In-London program.
Daniel Nitsch
Classical Guitarist Daniel Nitsch is currently pursuing degrees in performance and arts administration at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Daniel has performed extensively as a soloist and collaborator throughout the Rochester and Oberlin areas. Highlights include solo performances as part of the Eastman Community Honors Recitals and Seneca Falls Young Artist series. In addition to instrumental performance, Daniel serves as assistant conductor for the Northern Ohio Youth Orchestra. Developing an interest in the field of Arts Administration, Daniel holds positions with the Oberlin Conservatory Deans Office, Oberlin Campus Admissions, Oberlin Community Music School, and Oberlin Conservatory Library Reference Department. He also has served internships with the Oberlin Artist Recital Series, The American Bach Soloists, and international chamber music festival Music@Menlo.
Aaron Wolff
Aaron Wolff is a sophomore double-degree student at Oberlin hailing from Newton, MA. As a cello student of Natasha Brofsky of the New England Conservatory, Wolff won First Prize in the 2010 Boston Symphony Concerto Competition. Other competitions have led to performances with chamber orchestra A Far Cry and the Boston Trio. Now a student of Darrett Adkins, he recently performed alongside eighth blackbird in Oberlin's Contemporary Music Ensemble. Growing up in a musical household but never forced down one beaten path, Wolff would call himself a cellist with piano, guitar, and voice on reserve: since the angsty days of high school's freshman year, he has been crafting and recording his own tunes. During this time he was also musical director and arranger for his high school's award winning a cappella group, The Newtones. When not working on music, Wolff hones his other passion: for acting, both on the stage - at Oberlin as Mark Rothko in John Logan's Red - and for the camera - as Danny Gopnik, the potheaded bar mitzvah boy in the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man, which the Robert Altman Award for best ensemble cast at the Independent Spirit Awards.
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