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Archives for February 2014

Review: Duo Amal on Cleveland International Piano Competition Series at Reinberger Hall (Feb. 22)

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by Mike Telin

Duo-AmalThe career trajectories of piano competition laureates can be a fascinating thing to follow: where will life take them? On Saturday, February 22 in Reinberger Chamber Music Hall at Severance Hall, the Second Prize Winner at the 2007 Cleveland International Piano Competition, Yaron Kohlberg, who along with duo piano partner Bishara Haroni make up Duo Amal, presented a performance that was both technically and musically brilliant. Like concentric circles, from the first note to the last, this dynamic duo played from a common center: articulations, phrasings, tonal colors, crescendos and decrescendos were perfectly matched.

Protégés of Zubin Mehta, Haroni and Kohlberg initially came together as a duo piano team for a peace concert at the Oslo House in Norway in 2011. In a recent interview, Kohlberg said the musical connection between himself and Haroni was “so strong” they felt they needed to continue the musical partnership. And shortly thereafter Duo Amal – Amal being the Arabic word for “hope” — was formed. [Read more…]

Preview: Cantores becomes Contrapunctus, and makes its debut in music of the era of Mary, Queen of Scots on March 2

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by Daniel Hathaway

Mary-Q-ScotsIn 2004, Barbara Margolis gathered five of her professional singer colleagues and launched the one-on-a-part vocal ensemble Cantores Ecclesiae to explore church music written before 1650. By 2011, the group — now called Cantores Cleveland — had expanded into a non-profit organization, increased its numbers and embarked on the new mission of performing themed, multi-media concerts designed to bring old music back to life by placing it in its historical context.

Margolis having decided to step down, Cantores has entered a new era under a new name: Contrapunctus Cleveland. The mission remains the same, but the artistic leadership has passed on to British countertenor David Acres and soprano Judith Overcash, and Contrapunctus is now in residence at Trinity Cathedral in downtown Cleveland. The newly reconstituted, 19-voice ensemble will make its debut at Trinity on Sunday, March 2 at 3:00 pm in a program entitled “The Life and Times of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587). [Read more…]

Preview: CityMusic Cleveland launches “Journeys of Hope” concerts

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by Mike Telin

RefugeesCityMusic Cleveland will present the first three free public concerts titled Journeys of Hope on Sunday, March 2 beginning at 2:00 pm at the Lakewood Public Library. The concerts are part of CityMusic’s Roots to Branches – Music Celebrating Refugees project. This is the first in a series of four articles.

“We actually started the project because of a conversation Eugenia Strauss had with Father Bob Begin from St. Coleman’s Church,” said CityMusic Principal oboist and VP for Community Engagement Rebecca Schweigert Mayhew.

Through the help of the Refugee Services Collaborative with whom Mayhew, Strauss and CityMusic board member Sawsan Alhaddad started working with early on in the project, they discovered that every year 70,000 refugees come to the United States with over 500 settling in Cleveland, primarily from Bhutan/Nepal, Burma, Somalia, and Iraq.

Some come from once-prosperous but now war-torn countries, and many highly educated people find themselves working in unskilled jobs in a place where their credentials and experience are meaningless. [Read more…]

Review: Organist James O’Donnell at St. Paul’s, Akron (February 16)

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by Daniel Hathaway

O'Donnell-JamesWestminster Abbey organist James O’Donnell drew a large audience to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Akron on Sunday afternoon, February 16, for a full-length recital that ran the historical gamut of organ literature by composers who were active from the 1700s to the 1970s.

O’Donnell chose the sort of roughly chronological program that was the norm for mid-twentieth century recitals, beginning with Louis Marchand and proceeding through J.S. Bach, Enrico Bossi, Edward Elgar, Maurice Duruflé, Marcel Dupré, Frank Bridge and William Walton, with a slight preference for British composers. Which, after all, is exactly why you come to hear the incumbent of a famous English post play a recital in the US, especially a musician as accomplished as this one.

O’Donnell led off with Marchand’s Grand Dialogue in C, a work designed to show off the Grands Jeux of the French classical organ, with its fiery reeds and snarly cornets and tierces. [Read more…]

Preview: Fred Frith to perform both at Oberlin and Transformer Station

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by Mike Telin

FRITH-Fred“Fred Frith is unique among improvisers in his ability to draw so effortlessly on such a wide variety of styles,” Oberlin Conservatory Assistant Professor of Computer Music and Digital Arts Peter Swendsen said during a recent telephone conversation. “His styles range from the purely sonic abstract worlds that we might think of as electro-acoustic, to things that draw extensively on popular forms, on jazz, on music for film and dance. His comfort zone is everything and everywhere.”

This week Northeast Ohio audiences will have two opportunities to hear the acclaimed songwriter, composer, improviser and multi-instrumentalist when Fred Frith performs concerts on Wednesday, February 26 at 8:00 pm in Fairchild Chapel (Bosworth Hall) at Oberlin College and Friday, February 28 at 7:30 pm as part of the CMA Concerts at Transformer Station series.

Swendsen, who studied with Frith while doing graduate work at Mills College, remembers him as a wonderful teacher who was very supportive. [Read more…]

Preview: Guo Yazhi with the Cleveland Chinese Music Ensemble at Hiram College on March 2

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by Mike Telin

Guo-YazhiMaking his first Northeast Ohio appearance, the internationally renowned Chinese multi-instrument virtuoso Guo Yazhi will present a colorful showcase concert at Hiram College’s Frohring Recital Hall on Sunday, March 2, 2014 at 3:00 pm.

During Sunday’s concert Guo will play more than ten different traditional Chinese wind instruments, including the xun (an ancient clay ocarina dating back 7,000 years), the guanzi and shuangguan (single and double oboes with clarinet-like tone) and various sizes of suona (a shawm with metal bell).

During some of the musical selections Guo will be accompanied by the Cleveland Chinese Music Ensemble, David Badagnani, director, performing on the dizi (bamboo flute), sheng (mouth organ), erhu (fiddle), pipa and yueqin (lutes), drums, gongs, and other percussion. The program is sponsored by the Music Department and the Hiram Community Trust.

Born in 1966 in Shanxi province in northern China, Guo Yazhi is China’s premier performer of the suona, also playing nearly 30 other musical instruments. [Read more…]

Review: Chagrin Valley Chamber Music — pianist Caroline Oltmanns gives intimate recital with engaging commentary (February 23)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Oltmanns-CVCM-022314Before concert halls became ubiquitous, piano recitals were usually intimate affairs staged in domestic music rooms or salons. Caroline Oltmanns recreated that kind of ambiance during her recital on Sunday afternoon, February 23 at Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls when she played the annual midwinter piano concert on the Chagrin Valley Chamber Music series.

The room is not large, though the ceiling is lofty. The audience was good-sized for a February Sunday, but not numerous enough to need to be addressed as though it were a public meeting. And the piano, somewhere between a baby grand and a six-footer, was the sort of instrument you might encounter in someone’s living room.

Oltmanns took profit of all of those circumstances to spend an engaging hour communicating directly to her listeners, both through her flawless and eloquent playing and through her running commentary. [Read more…]

Preview: Blue Water Chamber Orchestra — “Lake Winds Bring Spring Strings”

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by Mike Telin

Bluewater-BarberOn Saturday, March 1 beginning at 7:30 in Plymouth Church, Blue Water Chamber Orchestra continues its fourth season with a concert titled “Lake Winds Bring Spring Strings”. The concert, performed without intermission, includes Barber’s Capricorn Concerto featuring orchestra principals Sean Gabriel, flute, Martin Neubert, oboe and Neil Mueller, trumpet.
BWOC Artistic Director Carlton Woods will also lead performances of Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Elgar’s Introduction & Allegro and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. A pre-concert Meet & Greet for children 12 and under begins at 6:45 pm.
During a recent telephone conversation Carlton Woods gave us his insights into Saturday’s intriguing program.

Carlton Woods: Well, the Capricorn came about because Neil is somewhat of a champion of the piece and he’s never had the opportunity to do it. [Read more…]

Preview: Oberlin Artist Recital Series — Cooper Competition winner George Li returns to Oberlin on March 1

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by Mike Telin

LI-George2Since his First Prize win at the inaugural Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition in 2010 at age 14, American pianist George Li is quickly establishing himself as a young pianist to watch. On Saturday, March 1st beginning at 8:00 pm, in Finney Chapel, George Li will return to Oberlin for his debut performance on the Oberlin College Artist Recital Series. Li’s program includes Schoenberg’s Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke, op. 19, Beethoven’s Sonata No. 32 in c, op. 111, Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a theme of Corelli, op. 42 and Ravel’s La Valse.

Praised by the Washington Post for combining “staggering technical prowess, a sense of command and depth of expression, Li was also a First Prize Winner in the 2010 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. In 2012 Li won the Gilmore Young Artist Award and received the Tabor Foundation Piano Award at the Verbier Academy. He has performed as soloist with orchestras including the Spartanburg Philharmonic, the Akron Symphony, the Xiamen Philharmonic in China, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra in Venezuela to name a few. Li’s 2013-14 season include recitals at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and he appears as soloist with the Richmond Symphony, the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra, and the Nordic Chamber Orchestra. He is currently in the Harvard University/ New England Conservatory joint program. [Read more…]

Preview: Opera Circle’s Traviata — conversations with Violetta (Dorota Sobieska) & Alfredo (Matthew Miles)

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by Mike Telin

SOBIESKA-MILESAfter the premiere of La traviata in March of 1853, Verdi wrote to composer, conductor and friend Emanuele Muzio: “La traviata last night a failure. Was the fault mine or the singers’? Time will tell.”

Today Verdi’s opera has not only found a place in the standard operatic repertoire, but during the 2012/13 season it was ranked first on Operabase’s list of the most performed operas in the world.

On Friday February 28 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, March 2 at 3:00 pm, Opera Circle presents Verdi’s La traviata at the Bohemian National Hall. The cast includes Dorota Sobieska as the famed courtesan Violetta Valéry, Matthew Miles as her young love interest Alfredo Germont, and José Andrade as Giorgio Germont, Alfredo’s meddlesome father. Conductor Robert L. Cronquist leads the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra.

“What I love about Verdi is that there’s always a tune,” Matthew Miles said by telephone during a rehearsal break. “I’ve loved learning the part, it’s been so much fun.” “Musically it’s one of the best operas ever written,” Dorota Sobieska added during the conversation. “But it’s not just the great tunes but the emotional highlights as well.” [Read more…]

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