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Archives for November 2013

Cuyahoga Arts & Culture announces 2014 Project Support Grants on November 18

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by Mike Telin

CAC-Logo-SquareSince 2007, Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC) has invested more than $97 million in 237 local organizations presenting arts and cultural activities in Cuyahoga County. On Monday, November 18 at the Jennings Center for Older Adults, CAC’s Board of Trustees announced that it would invest $1,891,902 in grants in 139 arts and culture organizations in Cuyahoga County next year through its 2014 Project Support grant program. CAC’s Project Support program funds Cuyahoga County-based projects that promote public access and encourage the breadth of arts and cultural programming in the community.

“I want to congratulate each of the organizations Cuyahoga Arts & Culture is funding in 2014, and we look forward to partnering with them in the coming months to benefit the community,” said Karen Gahl-Mills, CAC’s executive director. Approved by Cuyahoga County voters in 2006, CAC’s vision for its first ten years of public funding for arts and culture is to help build stronger, more resilient organizations, create vibrant and energetic neighborhoods infused with culture, and establish Cuyahoga County as a hub of creative activity and a destination for artists. “On behalf of all county residents, CAC is funding more arts and culture programs for more people in more places than ever before,” Gahl-Mills added.

The diversity of groups and projects that were approved for funding at Monday’s meeting is impressive, a true showcase of the cultural richness and diversity of Cuyahoga County. [Read more…]

Review: Arts Renaissance Tremont: Daniel Shapiro and Friends at Pilgrim Church (November 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Shapiro-&-ART-QuartetSometimes it’s not so easy to produce a concert. An established string quartet originally announced to appear with CIM piano professor Daniel Shapiro on the Arts Renaissance Tremont series last Sunday afternoon, November 17, withdrew late in the summer.

Fortunately, ART artistic director Christine Haff-Paluck had the rich resources of the Cleveland Institute of Music to draw upon, and organized a replacement quartet of excellent players: violinists Jinjoo Cho and James Thompson, violist Leah Ferguson and cellist Catlyn Kessler.

Then came the piano issue. Shapiro needed a more powerful instrument than the resident piano for a program of Romantic piano quintets, so a Steinway B was graciously loaned for the occasion from the Oberlin Conservatory.

And then there was a change in the program order after the programs had been printed: Dvořák’s Quintet in A, op. 81 was to have begun the concert, with Franck’s Quintet in f to follow. Haff announced before the concert that the two pieces would be played in reverse order. [Read more…]

Review: Organist Thomas Trotter in Elegant Recital at St. John’s Cathedral (November 19)

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by Timothy Robson

TrotterThomas Trotter, for the past thirty years the Birmingham (England) City Organist, appeared at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Cleveland on Tuesday evening, November 19, for a recital sponsored jointly by St. John’s Cathedral, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and the Cleveland Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. It was an elegant and satisfying concert from beginning to end.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, before the invention of electronic recording devices, cities in Europe—especially in England—and the United States built large pipe organs in public auditoriums. These city-funded facilities were for the purposes of the musical education and entertainment of the citizens, especially in places where there was no symphony orchestra.

The city organist was expected to perform transcriptions of orchestral and chamber works, light and “novelty” music and patriotic marches, as well as literature written for the organ. [Read more…]

Review: Cellist Yo-Yo Ma fills two concert halls at Oberlin College (November 20)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Ma-at-Oberlin-112013-(Mastroianni)Not only did international superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma sell out Finney Chapel for his appearance on the Oberlin Artist Recital Series Wednesday evening, he packed them into Warner Concert Hall as well, where an overflow crowd witnessed his masterful recital via simulcast.

Ma, who last appeared at Oberlin before its current students were born*, put together an unusual but engaging program that reflected some of his wide-ranging musical tastes. He also managed to serve up dessert before the main course — who doesn’t like that to happen once in a while — and only one item on his playlist was originally written for the cello. I heard the recital in Finney Chapel.

Saving two substantial works for the second half, Ma and his superb, longtime and apparently clairvoyant collaborator, pianist Kathryn Stott, launched the evening with delightful readings of Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne, then a made-up suite of pieces by Villa-Lobos (Alma Brasileira), Piazzolla (Oblivion) and Camargo Guarnieri (Dansa Negra) arranged by Jorge Calandrelli (Villa-Lobos and Guarnieri) and Kyoko Yamamoto (Piazzolla), and finally, Manuel de Falla’s 7 Canciones Populares Españolas. [Read more…]

Review: Tuesday Musical — Béla Fleck & Brooklyn Rider at E.J. Thomas Hall (November 12)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Fleck-&-Brooklyn-RiderBanjo virtuoso Béla Fleck and the plucky young string quartet called Brooklyn Rider (Johnny Gandelsman & Colin Jacobsen, violins, Nicholas Cords, viola, and Eric Jacobsen, cello) launched their current, multi-city tour on Tuesday evening, November 12 at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron under the auspices of the Tuesday Musical Association, who had earlier sponsored Brooklyn Rider on its Fuze! series at the Akron Art Museum.

Béla Fleck has long been known for his experiments in bringing the voice of the banjo into jazz, rock and other genres of music. The impetus for connecting these five outstanding musicians came directly from Fleck’s initial foray into classical composition (it was in the stars apparently, since his parents named him Béla Anton Leoš— after Bartók, Webern and Janáček, respectively). After premiering his banjo concerto, The Imposter, with the Nashville Symphony in September of 2011 (he also played it last season with The Cleveland Orchestra), Fleck had the opportunity to record the work for Deutsche Grammophon, but needed something else to fill out the album. [Read more…]

Preview: CIM Winter Chamber Music Festival begins November 22 with Cavani Quartet

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by Mike Telin

CavaniQuartetIn the end, the point of learning a piece of music is to perform it for an audience. “The audience is part of the chamber music equation – and we need the audience because, in a way, they are the other member of the group,” says Cavani String Quartet violinist and Cleveland Institute of Music faculty member Annie Fullard.

On Friday at 8:00 pm in Mixon Hall, Fullard will be joined by her Cavani colleagues Mari Sato, violin, Kirsten Docter, viola and Merry Peckham, cello, for the opening concert of CIM’s 2013 Winter Chamber Music Festival. The concert, titled “Influences and Inspirations I,” features Bartók’s Quartet No. 2, Op. 17, Mozart’s Quartet in A, K. 464 & Debussy’s Quartet in g, Op. 10.

Fullard says that end-of-semester chamber music marathons were part of CIM when the Cavanis became the school’s quartet-in-residence in 1988, and with the creation of CIM’s Intensive Quartet Seminar the following year, even more performances were added to the school’s already robust end-of-semester concert schedule. [Read more…]

Preview: Antonio Pompa-Baldi talks about his November 24 Tri-C Classical Piano recital and his new Poulenc/Piaf CD on the Steinway label

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by Mike Telin

POMPA-BALDI-AntonioOn Sunday at 2:00 pm in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium, the Tri-C Classical Piano Recital Series presents Antonio Pompa-Baldi in a concert dedicated to Franz Liszt.

“I think it is an interesting program and one that I also recorded in a live recital in Cape Town, South Africa at the end of June for the Two Pianist label,” the pianist told us during a telephone conversation. “It’s a program dedicated to Liszt — but not entirely of his music.”

Sunday’s program opens with Sergei Lyapunov’s Transcendental Etude No. 12 (Elegy in memory of Franz Liszt). “Lyapunov composed twelve Transcendental Etudes just like Liszt, and the set is dedicated to him. I’ll complete the first half with the Twelve Etudes, op. 10, of Chopin – which as a set are also dedicated to Liszt.”

The second half of the program features Liszt’s Ballad in b minor and Sposalizio (Years of Pilgrimage, Book II). “Sposalizio was inspired by Raphael’s painting of the Marriage of the Virgin, and since this is also the Verdi year I’m also including Liszt’s Paraphrase of Verdi’s “Ernani.” [Read more…]

Review: CMA’s “Masters of the Fiddle” — MacMaster and Leahy (November 15)

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by Daniel Hathaway

MacMaster-&-Leahy“Never work with children or animals,” said W.C. Fields. Good advice — unless of course you have such a reliable brood as Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy, who closed the first half of their sold-out concert at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Friday evening with an adorable parade of child fiddlers, beginning with 4-year-old Clare, then 6-year-old Michael, then 7-year-old Mary Frances, and eventually a cameo by 2-year-old Julia, who didn’t fiddle but gamely joined in a step dance. (1-year-old Alec stayed behind, while a sixth MacMaster-Leahy protègé was definitely involved in the show but hasn’t been born yet).

That gesture reflects the wholesome, family-values nature of MacMaster’s and Leahy’s show in Gartner Auditorium on November 15, an engaging, 2-1/2 hour festival of Cape Breton-infused music that took traditional fiddling to new heights of sophistication while preserving its down-home charm. At the beginning, MacMaster quipped that this was their last stop on a 12-city tour, “so you got us fresh,” and later narrated a long but charming account of how she and her future husband met. [Read more…]

Preview: Cleveland Classical Guitar Society — a conversation with Carlos Perez

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by Mike Telin

Perez-formal“I have chosen music from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century composers because they were all guitar performers and composers. And all of the composers that are represented on my program toured Europe and Latin America a lot,” Chilean classical guitarist Carlos Perez told us about his forthcoming concert via Skype from his home in Santiago.

“They all wrote in the romantic style and at that period of time, the classical guitar school in South America was very influenced by the Spanish school. Many Spanish guitar players went to Buenos Aires and began to develop and spread the technique as well as the music of this period across Latin America. I’ve been reading the old newspapers about those concerts and the reviews and all of the composer/players on this program were very successful at that time.”

On Saturday, November 23 beginning at 7:30 pm in Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society presents Carlos Pérez in a concert featuring the music ofAntonio Jiménez Manjón, Emilio Pujol, Tomás Damas, Agustin Barrios, Julio Sagreras and Ernesto Nazareth. As part of CCGS’s Educational Outreach programs, middle school students from Buchtel Community Learning Center of Akron will give a special guitar orchestra performance beginning at 6:50 pm. [Read more…]

Review: BlueWater Chamber Orchestra at Plymouth Church (November 16)

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by Guytano Parks

TANG-Jieming2BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, conducted by founder and Artistic Director Carlton R. Woods presented an enlightening and entertaining program of works by John Corigliano, Carl Maria von Weber, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Peter Maxwell Davies on Saturday evening at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. The featured soloists were Amitai Vardi, principal clarinet of BWCO, and fifteen year-old St. Ignatius High School sophomore Jieming Tang, violin, who made his orchestral debut on this occasion.

Opening the program was Corigliano’s Voyages for Strings, an instrumental version of an a cappella choral work that was a setting of Baudelaire’s L’Invitation au voyage. Plymouth Church proved to be the ideal space for this sensual music — beautifully played with wondrous blend and balance — to breathe and soar. Points of resolution were heavenly as the players mused and ambled through Corigliano’s sometimes ambiguous harmonic territory.

Jieming Tang impressed with his lovely, lyrical playing of Beethoven’s Romance No. 2, Op. 50. Projecting clearly and effortlessly above the orchestra at all times, his tone was sweet and clear in the upper register and deep and rich in the lower. Beethoven’s well-crafted piece benefitted from Mr. Tang’s expressive delivery of every detail, and Woods and the orchestra gave him fine and graceful support. [Read more…]

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