Ohio Wesleyan University | Department of Music

The Music Department has been a vital facet of the Ohio Wesleyan community for over 150 years. As one of the most respected music programs of the liberal arts colleges in Ohio, the Department of Music is characterized by talented and experienced faculty, outstanding facilities, personal attention, and numerous performing opportunities for both music majors and other interested students.

Music majors are offered the unique and challenging environment of the professional music degree program within the context of the university's renown liberal arts curriculum while the entire Ohio Wesleyan community enjoys a variety of musical performance and learning opportunities.

Marilyn and Robert Nims (Photo by Dr. Larry Griffin)

(Excerpts from the Delaware Gazette, Gary Budzak, staff writer - Monday, April 15, 2013)

Any couple that’s been married for 45 years must be in tune with other, which is definitely the case with music teachers Marilyn and Robert Nims.

“We’ve always worked together – voice and keyboard,” said Marilyn, a mezzo-soprano. “Bob has tremendous facility as a collaborative pianist.

The Nims’ have lived in Delaware since 1971, where they raised their children, Abigail and Anthony, professional musicians in their own right who graduated from OWU. The couple plans to continue performing recitals in the Delaware community and will choose other venues, such as retirement homes, to “bring a little light to people’s lives,” as Marilyn puts it.

Marilyn will be greatly missed at OWU and especially within Sanborn Hall, but the entire campus community wishes her all the best in her retirement.

Flute Performance and East Asian Studies

Rebecca Larkin (Photo by Dr. Larry Griffin) My name is Rebecca Larkin and I’m a junior B.M. Flute Performance major. I came to OWU because I wanted to graduate with a Bachelor of Music degree while still having the chance to explore other interests in a liberal arts environment. During my time here, I’m happy to say that I’ve been able to study music composition and East Asian studies along with my primary course work. Both subjects are areas of interest that I did not have the chance to pursue before college.

My interest in East Asian Studies started in late middle school after I became interested in Japanese pop culture, such as anime, manga, and video games. Throughout high school, I did my best to teach myself about the history and the culture of Japan through various school assignments, but I was always disappointed that there were not any courses available that focused on East Asia. I decided then that one of my goals for college was to study the Japanese language and learn about Japan in any classes I could take. I’m now minoring in East Asian Studies with a concentration in Japan studies.

Having taken four semesters of Japanese language, I was eligible to enroll in a Sagan travel learning course offered by my sensei, Jun Kawabe, called Japanese Culture: Inside and Out. It was a semester-long course that included a fifteen-day trip to Japan in mid- to late-May. I went with five other students to Tokyo, Hiroshima, Sakata, and Kyoto. Our class was small enough that Sensei could tailor activities to our various interests. As a result, I got to participate in workshops on ō-tsuzumi and taiko drumming, as well as see a Kabuki theater performance and the Asakusa Sanja Matsuri (Spring Festival), among other experiences.

As a part of our coursework, we were required to keep daily journals in Japanese and English, as well as complete an independent project of our choice. For my independent project, I wrote a woodwind quintet called "Ikaga Shite: A Prayer for Peace" as a reflection on my visit to Hiroshima. My trip to Japan was an incredible life-changing experience. It allowed me to further understand Japanese culture outside of the classroom, and it gave me the chance to learn more about myself. I also got to use my final project as a way to bridge the gap between my different interests. I truly hope that anyone who has an interest in studying abroad during college takes that opportunity to go!

Rebecca Larkin

Baroque Band concerts a contemporary affair at the MCA

BY KYLE MACMILLAN February 13, 2013 4:56PM

Jennifer Jolley's work, "Toy Trolley," was inspired in part by the big-city sounds of Chicago, especially its many trains.

Jennifer Jolley Considering the baroque era in music lasted roughly from 1600 to 1750, the words “baroque” and “contemporary” do not typically go together in the same sentence.

But the Chicago-based Baroque Band hopes to rethink that dichotomy by bridging old and new in a series of three concerts starting through Feb. 21 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

“This will be our first initiative at the MCA,” said Garry Clarke, the six-year-old ensemble’s artistic director, “and I think it’s the contemporary angle and the twist on the contemporary angle that fits so well with their mission.”

The series is based around a simple idea. Each of Johann Sebastian Bach’s six “Brandenburg” concertos — among the best-known and most popular baroque works — will be paired with a contemporary composition using an identical instrumentation.

Other groups, including the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, have undertaken similar projects, but this is believed to be the first time a period-instrument ensemble has tried it.

The Baroque Band, which has a core group of 13 to 15 players, performs on baroque-style instruments, which produce a sound that is lighter, more transparent and more organic than their modern equivalents. In terms of the violins, for example, that means gut (vs. steel) strings, a shorter finger board and a differently shaped bow requiring a lighter grip.

Four of the pieces were commissioned for these concerts, with the ensemble choosing composers from a wide mix of backgrounds: Elbio Barilari, David Fulmer, Jennifer Jolley and Jason Seed. Clarke asked them to capitalize on the differences in sound and distinctive capabilities of the period instruments and use them in fresh, new ways.

Jolley, 32, an assistant professor of music at Ohio Wesleyan University inDelaware, Ohio, draws inspiration from an array of sources in her music. “Sounds from the Gray Goo 3.0,” for example, offers an aural imagining of an apocalyptic invasion of nanorobots.

Jolley’s contribution to this project is paired with the “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 5, and it borrows certain motifs from the older piece.

“I feel like it’s more of a musical offering or response to the ‘Brandenburg’ Fifth Concerto instead of trying to re-create a new one,” she said. “Knowing that I would be writing for period instruments, I didn’t want to do anything too crazy that the period-instrument ensemble would not be able to do.”

The three-movement piece, written in a kind of minimalist style, was inspired in part by the big-city sounds of Chicago, especially its many trains. “I wanted to take the musical energy from the Brandenburg concerto — these 16th notes and this constant sequential motion — and combine it with this idea of what I think trains would sound like musically,” she said.

While she has enormous respect for Bach, she didn’t try to directly measure up to him. Instead, she wrote a piece in her own voice and on her own terms, called “Strassenbahn” (“Toy Trolley”).

“If I compared myself everyday with Bach,” Jolley said, “I don’t think I’d be able to proceed with my life. It would be too much pressure. So, I was like, ‘This is going to be a piece that I write.’ It’s not meant to be compared — which is better per se. It’s just different.”

Rounding out the three-concert line-up will be two already existing responses to the “Brandenburg” concertos by Christopher Theofanidis and Anna Clyne, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s composer-in-residence.

It’s too early to say how this week’s pairing of past and present will work, but Clarke is confident that the contemporary pieces will bring a new dynamism to Bach’s classic masterworks. At the same time, he hopes there will be happy musical discoveries by both contemporary and baroque music fans in attendance.

“It will be great,” he said, “to infuse and encourage new audiences for both types of music.”

Kyle MacMillan is a local free-lance writer.

Band Festival 2013

The Department of Music announces the opening of the newly renovated McMullen Electro-Acoustic Music Studio (MEAMS)

With the opening of the newly renovated McMullen Electro Acoustic Music Studio (MEAMS), students now have the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of electo-acoustic music composition. The studio, located in Sanborn Hall, is overseen by the Assistant Professor of Composition, Music Theory and Electronic Music. The MEAMS has the latest in digital audio editing technology. In the studio, students can create new electro-acoustic music compositions, master compact discs (CDs) or add music to film. The MEAMS is a Mac-based environment that boasts an incredible 2.5 terabytes of hard drive space. Students learn the basics of acoustics, musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) technology, and digital audio through MUS229 Introduction to Electronic Music Composition. They also work hands on with the equipment in their own three-hour block of studio time each week. This course culminates in final projects that are original compositions. Students may continue work in the studio through an independent study.

Dr. Thomas Carto founded the MEAMS in 1989 through a generous bequest of Marie McMullen. The times have changed, but the mission remains the same: to broaden the resources of music technology at OWU so that students and faculty members may explore, learn and create.

Music at OWU featured on Connect2 OWU!

Read all about the music events at Ohio Wesleyan on Connect2 OWU: