Cleveland Classical

Credo Music celebrates
20 years in Oberlin

by Daniel Hathaway

Among the several distinguished chamber music programs in Northeast Ohio that welcome young musicians each summer, Credo Music is unique for its parallel emphasis on providing professional-level music instruction to students ages 13-23, and on serving others — both through outreach concerts and in volunteering opportunities in food banks, park districts, churches, Habitat for Humanity, and homeless shelters.

Oberlin Conservatory viola professor Peter Slowik, who founded Credo in Chicago in 1999, said in a recent telephone conversation that this summer is a time to reflect on the last two decades. “Twenty years is a big milestone. Musical generations turn over every three, four, or five years. This is an opportunity to look back and see what we’ve done in the past, and to pivot toward where we’re going to be in the future.”

Slowik said that Credo has been “blessed from the beginning” to have virtually all of its faculty return every summer. “We were all in our early 40s at the beginning, and now we’re all in our 60s, so we have to think about refreshing ourselves. Because we’re probably not going to keep doing this when we’re in our 90s, this is an inflection point.” [Read on…]

Flute and piccolo featured
at Kent Blossom this week

by Jarrett Hoffman

Planning a recital means choosing music, of course, but also choosing people, and at this Wednesday’s faculty concert at the Kent Blossom Music Festival, Mary Kay Fink knew she wanted to play with Jessica Sindell.

The two have worked together in The Cleveland Orchestra for a season now — Fink, principal piccolo, has been in the flute section since 1990, while Sindell joined as assistant principal flute last fall. But their history runs deeper: Sindell studied with Fink in high school, having grown up in Pepper Pike. Later on, when she was preparing for professional auditions, she would sometimes play for Fink.

“I encouraged her to go the piccolo route,” Fink said during a recent interview, “and then she got the job in Rochester [solo piccolo in the Rochester Philharmonic].” Fink noted that she didn’t coach Sindell before the audition in Cleveland, but said that it’s been a great fit this past season. “She had subbed with us, and [principal flute] Josh [Smith] really enjoyed her. And her first teacher was Saeran St. Christopher, who plays second flute. It’s been a pretty easy transition — it’s been really wonderful.”

[Read on…]

“A rip-roaring good time”:
Yolanda Kondonassis talks about
Jennifer Higdon’s Harp Concerto

by Rory O’Donoghue

For Yolanda Kondonassis, premiering a new concerto is an on-going project.

“The whole mechanism of getting pieces played isn’t always factored into the commissioning of a piece,” the world-renowned harpist said by phone from New York. “You’ve got to premiere music, and then launch it. It’s like the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where after risking everything, the precious artefact gets hoisted up on a forklift and chucked onto the top shelf of the National Archives to gather dust — that’s sadly what happens to so many pieces of music. There’s a big difference between having the music, and having the music stay alive.” [Read on…]

New “Music in the Circle” series debuts in University Circle in July

by Daniel Hathaway

University Circle seemed to be firing on all cylinders last month — on Saturday, June 8, for example, in addition to hosting Parade the Circle, the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival and Cleveland International Piano Competition were producing simultaneous events at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra was packing Severance Hall for Jason Mraz down the street.

July is a different matter, and several U.C. institutions have joined forces to inject a new series into the calendar this year designed to keep performances flowing and to increase access to classical music. We spoke with Israeli pianist and recent CIM graduate Or Re’em, who is Music Director for Music in the Circle, an international summer music festival, to find out what’s in the plans.

Re’em had previously been involved with Judson Manor’s intergenerational program that houses CIM students in University Circle’s celebrated retirement community (read a New York Times feature here). “When the festival idea came up, Judson generously offered to sponsor visiting artists in their guest apartments,” he said. “That made it possible to invite artists from South Africa, Germany, Switzerland, and Israel. The program grew bigger than I originally expected.” [Read on…]

Opinion — Piping Down: letters from a reluctant opera queen (I)

by Parker Ramsay

For those of us keeping track, June has been an eventful month for American opera. Premieres of Anthony Davis’ The Central Park Five (Long Beach Opera) and Ian Bell’s Stonewall (New York City Opera) placed narratives of society’s dispossessed front and center on opera stages on both coasts. So too has a lost opera found a rebirth: directed by Yuval Sharon, Meredith Monk’s Atlas moved audiences in a production by Los Angeles-based Industry Opera at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Meanwhile at the Gärtnerplatztheater in Munich, I had the welcome surprise of seeing an opera which incorporates experiences of racial prejudice and homophobia at the same time. Composed in 1965, Hans Werner Henze’s Der Junge Lord tells the story of Lord Edgar, a secretive English aristocrat who settles in Willhelmine, Germany, and soon finds himself under suspicion of homosexuality, child abuse, and the general social transgression of socializing with friends of African descent (two roles are specifically cast for persons of color). [Read on…]

Kent Blossom: Spencer Myer on Beethoven

by Jarrett Hoffman

The Faculty Concert Series at Kent Blossom Music Festival continues next week with the latest chapter in a long partnership: the Miami String Quartet and pianist Spencer Myer.

This year they turn their attention to Beethoven’s Op. 16 in E-flat. It’s most often played by a quintet of piano and winds but will be performed here in its quartet version for piano and strings. The Miami will open the program on Wednesday, July 10 at 7:30 pm in Ludwig Recital Hall at Kent State with Haydn’s Quartet No. 64 in D, “Largo,” and they’ll conclude the evening with Bruch’s Quartet No. 1 in c. Tickets are available here.

Myer, the Gold Medalist in the 2008 New Orleans International Piano Competition, had just finished up a trip to the gym when I reached him by telephone. His coaching duties at Kent Blossom weren’t set to begin for over a week, but he was already in town, having taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Summer Sonata program.

[Read on…]

The Cleveland Orchestra plays Gershwin: a conversation with pianist Aaron Diehl

by Mike Telin

The story behind George Gershwin’s iconic Rhapsody in Blue begins when bandleader Paul Whiteman asked the composer to contribute a concerto for a jazz concert to be given in New York City’s Aeolian Hall in February of 1924. Gershwin initially declined the offer, saying there was not enough time to compose the piece.

But then an article about Whiteman’s planned concert ran in the New York Tribune in early January stating that “George Gershwin is at work on a jazz concerto,” which would be featured along with works by Irving Berlin and Victor Herbert. This was news to the composer, but after a phone call to the bandleader the next morning, Gershwin agreed to write the piece.

This weekend, pianist Aaron Diehl will return to the Blossom Music Center stage for performances of Rhapsody in Blue on Friday, July 5 and Saturday, July 6 at 8:00 pm with The Cleveland Orchestra. The concert, under the direction of Roderick Cox, will also include Bernstein’s Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront, Stravinsky’s Suite from The Firebird, and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Fireworks will follow both performances (weather permitting). Tickets are available online. [Read on…]

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