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Archives for November 2013

Preview: Tuesday Musical: Béla Fleck & Brooklyn Rider

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by Mike Telin

FLECK-BelaPrior to the performance of Imposter, Concerto for Banjo and Symphony Orchestra with The Cleveland Orchestra in December of last year, the 15-time Grammy Award-winning banjoist Béla Fleck told us about one of his recent classical compositions. “I’ve already finished my second commission, a 25-minute piece for banjo and string quartet,” Fleck said via e-mail. “The quartet is Brooklyn Rider and they are fantastic!

On Tuesday, November 12 beginning at 7:30 pm in E.J. Thomas Hall, Tuesday Musical presents Béla Fleck & Brooklyn Rider in a concert featuring Fleck’s Night Flight over Water, Quintet for Banjo and String Quartet.The Tuesday Musical performance is the second stop on a 19-city North American tour.

Fans of Béla Fleck already know that from the beginning of his musical career Fleck was experimenting with ways to incorporate the banjo into all styles of music such as bebop and jazz. As a member of Sam Bush’s progressive bluegrass band, New Grass Revival, his blending of rock and country music with bluegrass caught the attention of audiences and critics. [Read more…]

Review: BW Focus Festival showcases music of Christopher Theofanidis (November 2 & 3)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Theofanidis---ChristopherLast week at Baldwin Wallace University, Christopher Theofanidis joined a distinguished list of composers — including such names as William Bolcom, John Corigliano, Witold Lutoslawski and Krzysztof Penderecki — whose music has been gathered into a week-long Focus Festival to be rehearsed, discussed and performed by BW students and faculty. Begun in 1984 by Loris Chobanian and Elinore Barber, the festival was revived this year by BW composer-in-residence Clint Needham, who chose Theofanidis as the person to celebrate.

The festival culminated in a Friday evening concert by student chamber ensembles, a Saturday evening concert by the Motet Choir, Symphonic Wind Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra and a Sunday afternoon concert by faculty chamber ensembles. I “attended” the Saturday concert via BW’s new streaming service — along with fifty-some fellow viewers — and heard the Sunday performance live.

Unlike some of the thornier composers in Focus Festival history, Christopher Theofanidis makes friends quite easily through his music — a remarkable trait because there’s nothing facile or consciously ingratiating about his musical style. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Chamber Music Society — Cuarteto Casals with guitarist Manuel Barrueco at Plymouth (October 29)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cuarteto-Casals-BarueccoLast Tuesday evening at Plymouth Church, Cuarteto Casals warmed up a chilly, drizzly evening with sunny Iberian music that invoked the Mediterranean Sea and the night sounds of Madrid — with a bit of a detour into neighboring France in the middle. The Barcelona-based string quartet brought along the esteemed, Cuban-born guitarist, Manuel Barrueco, for quintets written by or inspired by those of Italian cellist Luigi Boccherini, who spent two extended sojourns in Spain, and the large audience was swelled on this occasion by members of the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, who co-sponsored the event with the Cleveland Chamber Music Society.

Catalonian composer Eduardo Toldrà (1895-1962) subscribed to an anti-modernist movement, “1900-ism”. Though his cheerful and tuneful 1920 quartet, Vistes al mar, based on three sea-related poems by Catalonian poet Joan Maragall, may have bucked against prevailing trends, the piece is thoroughly engaging and makes a delightful concert opener. Its lyrical lines, solid sense of form and rhythmic thrust were masterfully revealed by the players, who achieved an elegant blend and brought a catalog of nuances to their task. [Read more…]

Preview: Oberlin Opera: Hansel and Gretel— insights from director Jonathon Field and members of the cast

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by Mike Telin

JESSE-KarenThe first volume of children’s tales published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812 includes some of today’s most beloved stories such as Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel and Rumpelstiltskin. Also included in that volume is the tale of Hansel and Gretel, two children who cleverly outwit a witch. This week, Englebert Humperdinck’s adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale returns to the Hall Auditorium stage in Oberlin in four performances by Oberlin Opera Theatre, Raphael Jimenez conductor. The production also marks the return of rising opera star Karen Jesse (left) who is reviving her role as the witch.

The opera was last staged at Oberlin in 2003. Oberlin Opera theatre director Jonathon Field says this production is very different from the traditional approach to the opera that he took in the past. “As I was working on it during the spring I became disenchanted with the way I had done it before, so I took my score and erased all of my staging. I also began to look at the characters and tried to figure out some of the motivations — like what it was that led Hansel and Gretel to survive the witch when all of the other kids hadn’t.” However it is Field’s character motivations that prompted him to include a disclaimer in the opera’s publicity materials — Please note: Portions may not be suitable for patrons younger than 12.

Field points out that Hansel and Gretel come from a family that is very poor and often goes hungry. [Read more…]

Preview: Sound Gallery to debut at Akron Civic Theatre

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by Mike Telin

Sound-Gallery-(Gary-Adams)“Yes, there is chamber music, but it’s not a chamber music concert in the traditional sense,” bassoonist Renee Anthony Dee told us by telephone. “It is cabaret.” On Friday, November 8, beginning at 8:00 pm in the Akron Civic Theatre, the Akron-based mixed ensemble Sound Gallery presents their debut concert as part of the Civics Cabaret series. (The audience is seated on the stage and is invited to treat the evening like a club concert.)

Dee says the ensemble developed out of the members’ shared experience of feeling a closer connection to the public during their Knight Foundation-sponsored Random Acts of Culture performances. “We hope to expand the traditional concert format by combining many styles of music and to include the audience in the making of art.” Friday’s program is billed as an intimate evening of Homecomings and includes music that celebrates family and friends.

In addition to some old favorites like Dvorak’s “Going Home” from his New World Symphony and a sampler of Stephen Foster’s songs, audience members will also have the opportunity to become part of the performance through poetry, an idea that coalesced out of National Public Radio’s StoryCorps. “We’ll invite the audience to write something about what homecoming — or at this time of year, coming home for Thanksgiving — means to them. During intermission we’ll turn whatever we get into a narration that will be read during Jean-Michel Damase’s Seventeen Variations.” [Read more…]

Review: Warren Philharmonic with bassist Susan Hagen at Christ Episcopal Church (November 3)

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by Robert Rollin

HAGEN-SusanThis past Sunday’s Warren Philharmonic Orchestra concert took place in the sunlit Christ Episcopal Church, and featured a potpourri of ingratiating short pieces conducted by Susan Davenny Wyner. The highlight was a performance of Giovanni Bottesini’s Concerto No. 2 in B Minor for Double Bass and Orchestra by Boston area bassist, Susan Hagen. Hagen trained at Boston University under Edwin Barker, principal bass of the Boston Symphony. She has served for eight years as extra bass with Boston, is currently a member of the Boston Pops Orchestra, and a faculty member at the Boston Conservatory of Music.

Bottesini (1821-1889) entered the Milan Conservatory at fourteen as a scholarship student, graduating four years later after winning a three hundred franc prize for his bass playing. He was soon designated “the Paganini of the bass” for his virtuosity. Bottesini had a huge following and regularly added new original showpieces to his repertoire. He became principal bass at a Venetian theater where Verdi’s opera, I due Foscari was being performed. The two composers became lifelong friends. Though highly respected as a double bassist, Bottesini also acquired a European following as an opera conductor, and composed thirteen operas. He is best known for his virtuosic and idiomatic bass writing in the concertos that continue to be played today. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (November 3)

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by Guytano Parks

MITCHELL-BrettIt was a beautiful, clear and crisp autumn afternoon this past Sunday in University Circle. Brett Mitchell, newly appointed music director of The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra, conducted equally clear and crisp performances by COYO in a program at Severance Hall which featured the orchestral sections individually and collectively in works by Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Kilar and Mussorgsky.

A bright and chipper Festive Overture by Shostakovich opened the concert, revealing Mitchell to be a conductor full of charismatic energy and excitement as his enthusiasm prodded the musicians to exciting heights through sharp and precise gestures. Playfully tossing melodies back and forth between sections with effective variances of tone color and character, the music joyfully galloped toward its spirited conclusion.

The winds and strings were featured in the next two works: Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments and Kilar’s Orawa for strings. In the cubist-like Stravinsky piece — a complex mosaic-like network whose elements combine, conflict and interlock — the players are extremely vulnerable as every detail of articulation, phrasing, dynamics and balance are exposed due to the absence of the cushioning sound of strings. [Read more…]

Review: Mark O’Connor String Quartet on CMA Performing Arts Series (October 30)

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by Nicholas Jones

O'Connor-SQMark O’Connor has done more than probably anyone else to bring the bluegrass tradition of Appalachian fiddle playing to the attention of classical and crossover audiences.

O’Connor, who performed last week with his string quartet on the Cleveland Museum of Art’s “Masters of the Violin” series, has a formidable violin technique, based on what he calls the “language” of bluegrass, with dazzling arpeggios, energetic and persistent double stops, prominent slides, percussive “bow crunches,” and—above all— rhythmic drive. O’Connor has very successfully elevated his traditional Appalachian fiddle techniques to embrace the classical concert stage. He is a prolific composer in this mode, and has created a popular series of pedagogical materials, including workshops and summer camps, to build interest in the progressive bluegrass style that has come to be known as “newgrass.”

Introduced from the stage, the program included a few shorter pieces, especially duets at the beginning with each of the members of his string quartet, as well as a dazzling solo improvisation by O’Connor himself. [Read more…]

Review: Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XXI: CMA “Masters of the Violin” (November 1)

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by Nicholas Jones

SAVALL-RebecHespèrion XXI has long broadened from its original musical base (the viol music of the Renaissance in western Europe) to encompass the music of areas usually considered the margins of Europe. The program they presented last week at the Cleveland Museum of Art was a witness to the diverse musical cultures of one of those margins, the rich and dangerous mosaic of the Balkan countries.

In a beautifully crafted program led by the Catalonian gambist Jordi Savall with scrupulous attention to detail as well as overall coherence and impact, this ensemble of seven instrumentalists and five singers took the audience through a moving geographical and emotional journey.

The program was the best tour one could imagine of this troubled and fascinating region. The songs moved through whole worlds of language — Serbian, Greek, Hebrew, Bulgarian, Bosnian, and more. The program’s mobility itself reflected the area’s many diasporas — of Jews, Ottomans, Roma, and Christians alike, who through the centuries have migrated through the region. The singers and instrumentalists themselves were a United Nations of the Balkan peninsula, each a master of their regional style and instrument. [Read more…]

Review: M.U.S.i.C. (Musical Upcoming Stars in the Classics) at Orange Village Hall (October 20)

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by Daniel Hathaway

LABRO-JulienWhen Oberlin piano professor Peter Takács asked Cleveland artist and designer Jodi Kanter a few years back to organize some chamber concerts featuring young area performers, Musical Upcoming Stars in the Classics (M.U.S.i.C) was born. The organization, which seeks out “emerging world class musicians in Northeast Ohio and beyond”, gives them performing opportunities and pays them, presented its seventh “Classical Cabaret” on Sunday afternoon, October 20 at Orange Village Hall.

A large audience turned out to hear a varied program of music performed by Takács, violinist Michelle Abraham, cellists James Jaffee and Fedor Amosov and pianists Gregory Wang and Aleander Kostritsa, with a special appearance by Detroit accordionist and bandoneónist Julian Labro.

The concert took place in the village Council Chambers, a large octagonal room flooded with natural light and blessed with agreeable acoustics for chamber music. [Read more…]

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