Ross W. Duffin and Beverly Simmons have been named co-recipients of Early Music America’s 2018 Howard Mayer Brown Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Field of Early Music. [Read more…]
Archives for May 2018
Callisto & Razumovsky Quartets at Fischoff
CIM chamber groups took top prizes at the 2018 Fischoff Competition at the University of Notre Dame on May 13. [Read more…]
Lisa Wong promoted at Severance Hall
Lisa Wong has been named Director of Choruses for The Cleveland Orchestra, effective May 16. [Read more…]
Kenny Loggins with Contemporary Youth Orchestra at Severance (May 21)
by Alice Koeninger
Kenny Loggins and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra brought rock and roll to Severance Hall on Monday, May 21. Conducted by Liza Grossman, the CYO’s forces included two drum sets and a large chorus with backup vocalists for this retrospective of Loggins’ music. The sound was remarkable. [Read more…]
CityMusic: all-Beethoven with violinist Tessa Lark (May 20)
by Daniel Hathaway
Surely it was just a coincidence that CityMusic Cleveland’s final series of concerts mostly duplicated works The Cleveland Orchestra had played the week before in the third concert of its all-Beethoven Prometheus Project at Severance Hall. The unique piece on CityMusic’s program was the Violin Concerto, which received a glowing performance by Tessa Lark and the ensemble on Sunday afternoon, May 20 in St. Noel Church in Willoughby. [Read more…]
Vieaux and Labro to open the 2018 Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival
by Mike Telin
For the past seventeen years, the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival has brought some of the world’s finest classical guitarists, lutenists, lecturers, composers, teachers, and guitar makers to the Cleveland Institute of Music for three days of concerts, masterclasses, lectures, and demonstrations.
“It’s got to be one of the very best festivals in the world for our instrument,” guitarist Jason Vieaux said during a telephone interview. Vieaux, who heads the guitar department at CIM, credits CICGF founder and artistic director Armin Kelly for the Festival’s success. “For Armin it’s all about quality. Year in and year out, the players that he brings in are incredible, and the Festival is a tremendous gift to the City of Cleveland.”
Beginning on Friday, June 8 and continuing through Sunday, June 10, the 2018 edition of CICGF will feature thirteen artists and ensembles, five concerts, nine master classes, and three lectures. Click here to view the full schedule. Tickets are available online.
On Friday, June 8 at 7:30 pm in Mixon Hall, the Grammy-winning Vieaux will team up with his duo partner, accordionist Julien Labro, for this year’s opening concert. [Read more…]
Tigue to return to Ohio as they tour Strange Paradise
by Jarrett Hoffman
Around a decade ago, three Ohio-born musicians met through their studies in the percussion program at Ohio State University, and they just clicked.
After heading to the Eastman School of Music for their masters’ degrees, Matt Evans, Amy Garapic, and Carson Moody found themselves drawn six hours southeast — past Syracuse, Scranton, and Newark, through the Holland Tunnel, and over the Manhattan Bridge.
There, in Brooklyn, they set up a home base for their genre-fluid trio Tigue, whose influences include minimalism and indie rock. Now the group is hitting the road for a two-week tour — including a performance at the Bop Stop on Sunday, June 3 at 7:00 pm — to play music from their recent sophomore album, Strange Paradise. (Tickets are available online.)
Built around Evans’ synthesizer, Garapic’s vibraphone, and Moody’s drum set, the album explores long arcs and slow gradations of change in its 3 tracks over 41 minutes. As a comparison, Tigue’s first album, Peaks, comprised 8 tracks over 34 minutes. [Read more…]
Art Song Festival at CIM: Martínez & Terry (May 25)
by Timothy Robson
Soprano Anna María Martínez and pianist Craig Terry performed an arresting program as the second recital of the 2018 Art Song Festival at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall on May 25. Their authoritative performances covered a wide range of repertoire from Spain, the Caribbean, and Mexico. [Read more…]
Art Song Festival at CIM: Prégardien & Vignoles (May 24)
by Nicholas Stevens
Christoph Prégardien has traced the path of Schubert’s song cycle Die schöne Müllerin many times, yet he always seems to find it fresh beneath his feet. In two recordings and dozens of recitals, the German lyric tenor has made the cycle his own, sounding the hope, heartbreak, and resentment of its wandering miller with such assurance that his interpretation of the story feels genuinely true. [Read more…]
ChamberFest Cleveland — Season Seven: In Search of Freedom
by Mike Telin
Since ChamberFest Cleveland’s inaugural season in 2012, Festival co-artist directors Diana and Franklin Cohen have taken the concept of thematic programming to new heights. (It’s) About Time (2013) explored elements of time as related to the musical experience. Last season’s theme, Cycles: Phases! reflected on the complexity of the human experience at each stage of life.
This season ChamberFest will consider the concept of freedom — an essential ingredient to the creative process. Beginning of June 14 and continuing through June 30, In Search of Freedom will explore the range of freedom in music, with nine concerts in a variety of venues.
In addition to violinist Diana Cohen and clarinetist Franklin Cohen, this year’s roster of returning artists will include violinists Noah Bendix-Balgley, Alexi Kenney, and Amy Schwartz-Moretti, violinist/violist Yura Lee, cellists Julie Albers, Clive Greensmith, and Oliver Herbert, bassist Nathan Farrington, and pianists Zoltán Fejérvári, Roman Rabinovich, and Orion Weiss. Making their ChamberFest debuts are violinist Noah Geller, violists Matthew Lipman and Tanner Menees, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, flutist Lorna McGhee, and singer Amanda Powell.