Benefit Concert Fundraises for

CONSERVATORY

March 25, 2022 Established 1874 Volume 151, Number 16

IN THE PRACTICE ROOM Benhur Ghezehey, Eritrean Operatist, Vocalist

Walter Thomas-Patterson Conservatory Editor Ella Bernstein Production Editor

Benhur Ghezehey is a Conservatory second-year Classical Voice major from Eritrea. He is starring in Oberlin’s production of Domenico Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto at Hall Auditorium at 8 p.m. tonight and tomorrow, and 2 p.m. this Sunday.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Could you tell me a little bit about your early life and how you were introduced to classical music? How much formal study did you have as a child?

I came from a family of warriors and athletes mostly, so no one in my family was into music. But as a child, everyone listened to music — my mom would sing lullabies. I would also love listening to traditional Eritrean music of all sorts, from all the different tribes we have. But when I was 4 years old, I watched a Tom and Jerry cartoon where they sang opera. The sound was unique; they were like [in an operatic voice], “Figaro, Figaro, Figaro” — it really captivated me. It made me curious.

Before I came to America, I taught myself to sing by listening to records for three years. I downloaded media sheets from the internet and studied those since there was no music school. Later, when I was 18, myself and a group of young Eritrean musicians, mostly teenagers, gathered and formed this group called Sound of Oasis. We got support from the Eritrean Commission of Culture and we presented concerts to the public, who normally aren’t exposed to classical music played by native Eritreans.

We performed at the Asmara Theatre, which has a particular history. It was built in 1918 by the Italian colonizers. During colonization, they didn’t even allow native Eritreans to wander about its grounds or attend classical music concerts. They maintained a strict apartheid. They halted Eritrean natives from getting an education after about the fourth grade because they feared it would cause the people to revolt. So there is this kind of trauma from colonization, and classical music was the music of the colonizers, especially opera.

Because my family is a family of warriors, and they died to make the country independent against invaders, my singing of opera for them was not acceptable intially because they considered it foreign—something from the colonizers.

Can you talk about how you finally made it to the States?

Eritrea doesn’t have a great relationship with the outside world, and it was not until I got to meet an American pianist, John Ferguson, the executive director of an organization called American Voices, that I could come to the U.S. He came to Eritrea to do a workshop for musicians, and we performed a German lied together, which he posted on Benhur Ghezehey sitting at Piano in Stull Recital Hall. Courtesy of Jake Berran Facebook. A teacher from New York invited me to attend a festival in Italy, which was the first time I received formal instruction. In 2019, I got a diplomatic exception to come [to the States] because the Trump administration had banned Eritrean students from studying here. I attended St. Louis University to study academic English and to take private lessons so I could apply to music schools. I became the only international African student in the Conservatory here.

How did your family react when you began seriously pursuing opera?

When I started to do opera, they thought, “Maybe he’s just being influenced by culture.” They thought it wasn’t going to come into fashion, but then something happend.

The whole community embraced the music because of its beauty. And in a way, it started to heal people from trauma; they started to appreciate the music as made by humans instead of by whites or oppressors.

Because they saw performers like me, who look like them, they realized that it’s actually beautiful music. Even though its history is troublesome, the music itself is not corrupt.

There are a lot of younger people now being inspired to attend classical music concerts, which is exciting. We are not at war anymore and now we are in nation building.

You have to build a society not just by economic development but also by culture, and music takes center stage.

Knowing that classical music has sometimes been wielded as a tool for oppression, how do you take it and wield it for something liberating?

It would be a tragedy if we would abandon this music because of how Westerners treated people. The canon has to open up to incorporate all people’s old music. And when you say classical music, if we are really going to go deep into history, how did Europeans get that music? It was from the Moorish empire that introduced instruments to them, and the troubadour culture that happened in Moorish Iberia during the Islamic Golden Age. So if you go deep into history, classical music has been transferred from people to people. It’s very connected. Each people adds to it.

Benefit Concert Fundraises for Ukraine Relief

Adrienne Sato Senior Staff Writer

On Wednesday, a host of Oberlin Conservatory faculty, along with guest musicians, performed a benefit concert to raise money for organizations aiding Ukrainian citizens affected by the ongoing war with Russia. The concert featured classical music works from a diverse array of composers and periods, ranging from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suites to Ernest Bloch’s Prayer.

While the event was free, attendees were encouraged to donate to UNICEF, the Red Cross Ukraine, or Razom, a Ukrainian-American humanitarian organization.

The concert included performances by 16 different individuals and groups from the Oberlin Conservatory faculty and staff, including pianists Scott Cuellar, Peter Takács, Tony Cho, Yulia Fedoseeva, James Howsmon, and Haewon Song; flutist Alexa Still; clarinetist Richard Hawkins; French hornist Jeff Scott; bassoonist Drew Pattison; violinists Francesca dePasquale and David Bowlin; violist Kirsten Docter; cellist Dmitry Kouzov; bassist Derek Zadinsky; and members of the Verona Quartet. Cellist Andrei Ioniță also performed as a guest.

Associate Professor of Cello and co-organizer of the concert, Dmitry Kouzov, explained that he has been glued to news coverage depicting the horrors of the war over the past month, and sees the concert as a way of coping.

“The original idea came from the fact that it’s impossible to watch what’s happening in the news,” he said. “The first ten days, I was glued to my phone, just reading news 24/7, not really sleeping much — putting this program together helped distract myself from the nonstop violence. From the [start] there was overwhelming support from the community and from faculty and from everyone.”

Teacher of Double Bass Derek Zadinsky also performed in the concert, and he echoed some of Kouzov’s feelings of helplessness in the face of this war. He noted that playing in charity concerts is one of the easiest things to do as a musician to help aid humanitarian interventions.

“It’s not often that we get this much of the faculty together to perform on a program,” he said. “Our pain and inconveniences are nothing compared to what people in Ukraine are experiencing right now.”

For Romanian guest performer and cellist Andrei Ioniță — a friend of Kouzov’s — his involvement in the concert is profoundly personal. Romania borders Ukraine to its south, and according to the U.N., has accepted over 550,000 Ukrainian refugees as of March 22

Ioniță, who was in Romania’s capital, Bucharest, less than two weeks ago, saw the condition and outlook of many of the refugees that had fled to Romania firsthand.

“There was a real sense of this ominous feeling growing in the streets there because Romania is right at the border Conservatory Faculty performing Schumann at First United Methodist Church.

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

to the Ukraine,” he said. “What really impressed me was the sense of determination that you could see in all of these women’s and mothers’ eyes. They just wanted to protect their children. They are just hoping for a slightly better future than what was happening back in their hometowns.”

Ioniță performed two pieces in the concert, each chosen from his repertoire to help achieve a balance of both mourning and transcendence.

“I will be playing Ernest Bloch,” he said. “This particular piece has a proper fit for the concert. It has the sense of sorrow and longing, but at the same time it is a prayer for peace.”

Ioniță contrasted his more contemporary performance with a rendering of Bach’s Cello Suites, a foundational work of cello.

“To me, [Bach’s] music always brought a sense of serenity and this calmness … just coming from above, not necessarily rooted in earthly problems,” he said.

Kouzov’s identity also plays a role in the way that he experiences the war. He was born in present-day St. Petersburg, and witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union when he was 16. Having spent considerable time in Ukraine during his youth, he has friends who are still living there.

“It’s very painful to see what’s going on because both places are very close to my heart, and there are people I know [in Ukraine], and also there are lots of people I know, of course, in Russia,” he said. “I could never imagine that the country I was born in would do something like they’re doing now, and it’s very very, very painful to watch. It’s this helpless sense of guilt.”

Ioniță also noted that there are certain aspects of music that make it the perfect vessel for conveying messages such as this one and for allowing people to come together in a way that is important in the face of humanitarian crises.

“Music has in most cases been the language of peace,” he said. “The whole classical music industry is actually so international and so open that it’s really one of the best examples of how people can really come together and understand each other.”

Kouzov encouraged people to continue donating to the three organizations listed on the concert program. You can donate online to UNICEF, Red Cross Ukraine, and Razom.