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Cleveland Orchestra ignites Blossom with Tabita Berglund and Simone Lamsma (Aug. 15)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, OHIO — The Cleveland Orchestra, Norwegian guest conductor Tabita Berglund, and Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma — pyromaniacs all — set what looked like a routine orchestral program ablaze on Saturday evening, August 15 at the Blossom Music Center.

Lamsma is a well-known guest with the Orchestra, and judging only by the ardent reception she received from the Blossom crowd the moment she stepped on stage for Jean Sibelius’s concerto, a very popular visitor.

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Cleveland Orchestra spends a night at the opera (Aug. 13)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — For the August 13 Summers at Severance concert — A Night at the Opera —  The Cleveland Orchestra, under the direction of John Fiore, treated the audience to a well-crafted mix of favorites and rarities.

Soprano Latonia Moore, whose winning stage presence could change the minds of more than a few listeners who swear they don’t like opera, drew the audience in with elegant and remarkably communicative singing coupled with direct smiles and knowing glances. Increasingly a Cleveland favorite, she sang the title role in Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa here in May of 2025 and returned this past January for the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Concert.

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Cooper International Competition for Violin: Concerto Finals (Aug. 10)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Monday evening’s Cooper International Competition for Violin concerto finals in Oberlin’s Warner Concert Hall marked the culmination of a week’s worth of public playing that took the measure of an impressive group of young musicians in solo recitals.

Now, joined onstage by conductor David Danzmayr and the Columbus ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, the three performers who had risen to the top would demonstrate their ability to put full concertos across. Grace under pressure, a spirit of collaboration, and a deep feeling for the music were among the requirements.

Elizabeth Poppy Song (center), age 16, from the United States, led off with a beautiful opening statement of the lyrical theme in Sergei Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 2 in G minor, and gradually and with great control shifted the music into a more spirited mood. She maintained good coordination with Danzmyr and the orchestra as the first movement alternated between technical and lyric passages and culminated in an exciting pizzicato ending.

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Jean-Yves Thibaudet plays Debussy’s Préludes to his strengths (July 30)

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by Stephanie Manning

Performing Claude Debussy’s complete Préludes in recital is rare, but Jean-Yves Thibaudet has been making a habit of it. Over the past few years, the pianist has appeared in venues across the country to play the entirety of Book I and Book II as a 90-minute concert. He presented that program on July 30 in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

What brought Thibaudet to Cleveland was not just his solo recital — he also gave masterclasses as part of the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists. By July 30, all six finalists had already participated in sessions with Thibaudet, testing their ability to adapt to feedback. And on the eve of the Competition’s concerto round, the time was ripe for both contestants and audience to sit back and listen to the master pianist himself.

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Kazuki Yamada brings sunny energy to multifaceted Cleveland Orchestra program (Aug. 1)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — To clap or not to clap between movements — that is the question many Cleveland Orchestra audience members faced on Saturday night at Blossom Music Center. Luckily, Japanese guest conductor Kazuki Yamada had an answer.

Hearing some scattered applause after the first movement of Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 2, Yamada turned his head, smiled, and gently put his own hands together. That moment gave the crowd the green light they needed to join in.

Yamada’s willingness to engage with listeners felt like an extension of his genial personality, which allowed him to lead The Cleveland Orchestra on August 1 with both excitement and poise.

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Cleveland Orchestra principal trombone brings 24 carat tone to concerto debut (July 30)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, OHIO — The July 30th Summers at Severance concert by The Cleveland Orchestra celebrated a beautiful evening, with many people decked out in their summer best enjoying pre-concert drinks and nibbles on the terraces and in the grand foyer of Severance Music Center. It was terrific to see a capacity crowd that included so many younger people enjoying the amenities of Severance — and the energy their reactions brought to the program of music by Joseph Haydn, Nino Rota, and Camille Saint-Saëns was memorable.

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CIPC for Young Artists: Final Concerto Round (July 31)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The last lap in the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists brought the six finalists together with conductor Steven Byess and the Canton Symphony on the stage of Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music on Friday evening, July 31.

After putting the young musicians through Magic Flute-like trials to test their mettle in solo performances, chamber music, and master classes with Jean-Yves Thibaudet (the latter an innovation designed to assess their adaptability to interpretational suggestions), it was time to hear how they reacted to the real-world scenario of sharing the stage and making music with a conductor and an orchestra. (In consideration of the competitors’ ages, only the first movements of works were performed.) [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow (July 9)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Despite its humble origin as a hasty replacement for a failed Viennese lyrical theater project, Franz Lehar’s 1905 lyrical theater piece The Merry Widow quickly rose to prominence, racking up its 400th performance as early as April 4, 1907 while igniting a brisk demand for merch in the form of Merry Widow corsets, hats, and cigars.

With its popular story line featuring aristocrats keeping up appearances while staring down financial ruin, international intrigues involving fictitious principalities, mismatched romances needing to be sorted out, and brief excursions into the demimonde of society’s less respectable institutions, TMW wasted few opportunities to become the quintessential Viennese operetta. [Read more…]

Undaunted by rain, Idina Menzel and Cleveland Orchestra work their magic at Blossom (July 26)

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by Peter Feher

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — Misfortune almost strikes during Act 1 of the musical “Wicked” when Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West, gets caught mid-song in a rain shower. Funnily enough, she doesn’t melt. For an audience that knows “The Wizard of Oz,” it’s an early hint that the show is destined for a happier-than-expected ending.

You could say it was an auspicious sign, then, that the skies opened up right before Idina Menzel took the stage at Blossom Music Center on Sunday, July 26, even as the rain persisted throughout her first several numbers.

A distinctive voice in theater and film for three decades now, Menzel has a characteristic way of transforming any setback into a kind of encouragement — a power ranging well beyond her Tony Award-winning turn as Broadway’s original Elphaba.

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Cleveland Orchestra’s dance-focused program at Blossom welcomes new face, new piece (July 25)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — “Dance” was the operative word and cello the instrument of choice on Saturday evening at Blossom Music Center.

The 20th-century program on July 25 sandwiched The Cleveland Orchestra’s first performance of Bohuslav Martinů’s Cello Concerto No. 1 between two pieces inspired by the art of movement: Zoltán Kodály’s Dances of Galánta and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. Heading it all up was conductor Kevin John Edusei, making a memorable Cleveland Orchestra debut.

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