Elizabeth Swados, Creator of Socially Conscious Musicals, Is Dead at 64

Elizabeth Swados, a composer, writer and director who fashioned a unique style of socially engaged musical theater, drawing on a global menu of musical styles and a street-level engagement with the politics of the dispossessed, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. She was 64.  The cause was complications of surgery for esophageal cancer that she had undergone in April, her wife, Roz Lichter, said.  Ms. Swados (pronounced SWAY-dose) was already a talent to watch when, while still a student at Bennington College, she provided the music for Andrei Serban’s adaptation of “Medea” at La MaMa, the downtown Manhattan avant-garde theater.  more

Two new music journals in the Conservatory Library! Music & Literature | Sound On Sound

New in Con Periodicals - come in and take a look at them!

Sound On Sound

Music and Literature

Pierre Boulez, French Composer, Dies at 90

Pierre Boulez, the French composer and conductor who was a dominant figure in classical music for over half a century, died on Tuesday at his home in Baden-Baden, Germany. He was 90.

His death was confirmed by his family in a statement to the Philharmonie de Paris. “Audacity, innovation, creativity — that is what Pierre Boulez was for French music, which he helped shine everywhere in the world,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls said in a statement.  More

Oberlin Conservatory Library January hours

Conservatory Library Closed on Monday, January 18  (Martin Luther King Day)

Mon-Fri 9a - noon 1p - 4:30p

Sat-Sun CLOSED

The Most Shared Classical News Stories of 2015

Classical music is often vastly overshadowed by popular culture on social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. To put things in perspective, Lang Lang has 277,000 followers on Twitter. Justin Bieber has 71.8 million. But in 2015 classical music did, on occasion, break into the broader social media conversation in a big way. more