Self-described eclectic musician Forrest Tobey will present an afternoon of classical and jazz piano on Sunday, June 4 at 4:00 pm. Doors open at 3:30 pm in the historic former Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church, built in 1906 at the northwest corner of 11th and North A Streets.
Earlham College Music Faculty member Forrest Tobey performs an afternoon of classical and jazz piano, featuring music by Beethoven, Grieg, Debussy, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, and Thelonius Monk.
Tobey, the director of the Earlham College Orchestra, teaches courses in Western music theory and music technology, and also oversees computer music studies. He is a classical and jazz pianist and has composed both acoustic and electro-acoustic music. Tobey reports that his recordings include an album of original piano music, released online as Awakening and an online album, Dancing Down the Dawn, with the band, Off Chants. The latter work is a creative blend of jazz, folk and Indian Classical music, according to Tobey.
“My involvement with computer music focuses on the use of the computer for interactive live performance,” Tobey said. His research projects have focused on the interaction between gesture and computer, asking, “How does a computer respond musically to human gesture?”
Tobey is currently exploring what he describes as “the deep relationship between music and mathematics.”
Tobey performed live computer music with the Buchla Lightning at the start of the Millennium celebrations in Times Square. He has also performed with and worked with many groups for the past two decades in that genre. He has also performed at the National Gallery in Washington DC.
Tobey’s musical interests, he said, range from “Bach and Beethoven to Debussy and Ravel, Gershwin and Copland.” His jazz interests revere “Evans and Monk, Miles and Coltrane, Jarrett and Corea.”
Forrest Tobey
Born In Brooklyn, NY, Tobey grew up in New Jersey but was educated in Washington, Colorado and Maryland. He highlights as significant the three years he spent living in India. In addition to his musical endeavors, Tobey is committed to and involved in Earlham’s Tibetan Studies in India program. Tobey lists his scholarly interests to include “human/machine interfaces via gestural control, Tibetan Buddhist ritual musical theory instruction as a gateway to the understanding of universal principles of inner and outer harmony.”
Tobey earned the Doctor of Musical Arts at Peabody Conservatory of Music, Master of Music at Western Washington University, and Peabody Conservatory of Music, Bachelor of Arts at Whitworth College and Bachelor of Music at Western Washington University.
The Reid Center was created to preserve the historic 1906 Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church. The organization’s leadership serves to make the center an educational and historical destination for offering many free concerts and ticketed events to the public. Along with its Louis Comfort Tiffany windows, vaulted ceiling and stunning interior design, The Reid Center features a 1905 Hook and Hastings pipe organ and a one-of-a kind 1902 Starr Piano Company 9-foot concert grand piano.
Many community volunteers, through a variety of talents, support the ongoing regular events such as the free noon concerts on the first Wednesday of each month. Donations to The Reid Center, a 503c3 organization can be made by visiting reidcenter.org/support/.
