E4TT announces Erika Oba as its May 2022 #MeetTheArtist composer

55 Taylor Street, San Francisco, CA, 94102/ E4TT.org/ (510) 684-0505

Media Contacts:
Nanette McGuinness/ nanette@E4TT.org
Brennan Stokes/ brennan@E4TT.org
Roziht Edwards/ roziht@E4TT.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 7, 2022

Ensemble for These Times

Announces the Fifth Interview in its

2022 #MeetTheArtist Interview Series

with

Month-long Spotlights on California BIPOC Women Composers:

May 2022, with Erika Oba

San Francisco, CA—San Francisco contemporary music chamber group Ensemble for These Times (E4TT) is proud to announce the continuation of the third season of its “#MeetTheArtist” interview series, which started on January 4, 2022. Each month between January and June, 2022, E4TT’s “#MeetTheArtist” interview series
is spotlighting a single California BIPOC woman composer, who will be featured every Monday of their respective month with posts on social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) introducing them on the series and then providing information about their website, upcoming projects, specific works we’re currently
listening to, link(s) to their music channels, etc. The highlight of the month will be the full interview (audio, video, or pdf, depending on the artist’s preference) on YouTube, Instagram, and E4TT’s website on the third Monday of the month, followed by a recap to bring the artist’s month to a close.

After inaugurating the new series on January 3, 2022 with Dawn Norfleet, following with Juhi Bansal in February, Vivian Fung in March, and Valerie Liu in April, E4TT continues the series in May with Erika Oba.

Why Focus E4TT’s 2022 Interviews on BIPOC women artists?

The marginalization of diverse creators, especially BIPOC women, is an inequity that prevails throughout our
society. Women composers are in particular need of advocacy, as their work is seriously underrepresented in
mainstream classical concerts, as repeatedly shown by programming statistics. Moreover, structural racism
continues to plague the classical music field: access and advancement opportunities for BIPOC composers are
much fewer than for white composers, and, while women artists in other creative fields—even the performing
arts—have witnessed impressive advances, women composers continue to struggle to gain a foothold in classical concert halls. Further, when BIPOC and women artists do have their music performed, it is most often relegated to "their" months or time periods: Black History (February), Women's History (March), and/or Latinx/Hispanic Heritage (Sept. 15-Oct. 15), rather than integrated into regular season programming. E4TT's 2022 #MeetTheArtist Interview Series with BIPOC women composers seeks to address these problems directly, by shining a spotlight on six Bay Area and California BIPOC women composers, giving them a public forum and opportunity to gain recognition about their artistry and the issues that concern them.

“#MeetTheArtist” Interview Series

Following the Summer 2020 success of a smaller set of curated interviews focusing on women creative artists—
composer Elinor Armer, visual artist Corinne Whitaker, and soprano Chelsea Hollow—E4TT expanded its “#Meet the Artist” interview series in 2021 with month-long spotlights on individual BIPOC composers and musicians. Beginning on Monday, January 4, 2021, #MeetTheArtist featured a different BIPOC creative artist each month, with each featured every Monday of their respective month via posts on social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn), first introducing the artist into the series and then featuring information about their website, upcoming projects, specific works we’re currently listening to, and/or link(s) to their music channels, etc. The highlight of the month will be the full interview (audio, video, or pdf, depending on the artist’s preference) on YouTube, Instagram,and E4TT’s website on the third Monday, followed by a recap to bring the month to the close. The 2021 series began with composer and performer Pamela Z (b. 1956) and continued in February with composer and educator Jonathan Bailey Holland (b. 1974), March with Anthony R. Green (b. 1984), April with inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993), May with Sakari Dixon Vanderveer, June with Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1978), July with Shannon Sea, August with Marcus Norris (b. 1991), September with Brice Smith, October with Nicolas Lell Benavides (b.1987), November with Angélica Negrón (b. 1981) and December with Darian Donovan Thomas (b.1993).

E4TT began its third #MeetTheArtist series on January 3, 2022 with Dawn Norfleet. The 2022 series will run for the first six months of the year with Juhi Bansal, Vivian Fung, Valerie Liu, Erika Oba, and Monica Chew and will then be converted into a podcast.

#MeetTheArtist in May: Erika Oba

Erika Oba is a composer, pianist/flutist, and educator based in the SF Bay Area. As a composer she has written works for big band, small jazz ensembles, chamber groups, dance and theater. She is active as a performer on both piano and flute, and is a member of the Montclair Women’s Big Band, Ends Meat’ Catastrophe Jazz Ensemble, Rice Kings, and The Sl(e)ight Ensemble and has performed with the Hitomi Oba Ensemble, Peter Apfelbaum's Sparkler, and Jason Levis and Lisa Mezzacappa’s Duo B Experimental Band. In 2021, she was one of the performers in the premiere performance of Meredith Monk’s Indra’s Net. She has worked as a dance accompanist for Mills College and Berkeley Ballet Theater, and is currently a resident music director with Berkeley Playhouse’s Youth Conservatory Program. In addition to her own private teaching studio, she is a private jazz piano instructor for UC Berkeley’s Music Department.

Past artistic projects include a collaboration with choreographer Sammay Dizon, through the Red Poppy Art
House’s inaugural Crossover Residency program in 2016. She was a performer fellow with Giant Steps Music Action Lab in 2017, during which she collaborated with an international group of musicians and recorded the album What If. In 2018, she was a composer fellow with the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music and worked with the Del String Quartet. She was the recipient of a 2019 Civics Art Grant from the City of Berkeley, and collaborated with playwright Weston Scott to write an original musical. As an artist, she is interested in exploring ritual, diasporic identities, and community through performance. She received her BM in Jazz Piano Performance from Oberlin Conservatory and her MA in Music Composition from Mills College.

About Ensemble for These Times

Founded in 2007, Ensemble for These Times focuses on 20th and 21st century music that is relevant, engaging,
original, and compelling, music that resonates today and will speak to tomorrow. E4TT strongly believes in the
power of artistic beauty, intelligence, wit, lyricism, and irony to create a deep understanding of our times and the human condition, with women artists an ongoing focus. E4TT is committed to an inclusive, equitable, and diverse practice, and to ensuring that all communities—including those that have been historically underrepresented based on race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or any other factor—are represented in our artistic decisions and programming.

Winners of The American Prize in 2021 for Chamber Music Performance, E4TT consists of award-winning soprano and Artistic Executive Director Nanette McGuinness, cellist Abigail Monroe, pianist Margaret Halbig, and Senior Artistic Advisor and San Francisco Conservatory of Music faculty member, composer David Garner. E4TT made its international debut in Berlin in 2012; was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Budapest for a four-city tour of Hungary in 2014; and performed at the Krakow Culture Festival in 2016 and at the Conservatorio Teresa Berganza in Madrid in 2017. E4TT has performed locally at the German Consulate General, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Old First Concerts, JCC Peninsula, Trinity Chamber Concerts, and Noontime Concerts, among other venues. E4TT’s critically acclaimed recordings include “Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan,” which was released in 2020 in honor of the centennial of this seminal 20th century poet, and won a Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards. The group’s debut CD, “Surviving: Women’s Words,” released on the Centaur label in 2016, was also honored with a Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards. E4TT’s second CD, “The Hungarians: From Rózsa to Justus” (Centaur Records, 2018) won a Gold Medal in the Global Music Awards the year of its release.

For more information about E4TT’s 2021/22 Bay Area Home Season, please visit our website.

E4TT’s 2022 #MeetTheArtist series is supported in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov and subscribe to the California ArtBeat newsletter.

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