by Mike Telin
Milt Hinton with Cab Calloway
This weekend, double bass students aged 13 to 21 will travel to the Oberlin Conservatory to be part of the Inaugural Milton J. Hinton Institute for Studio Bass. The weeklong institute provides the young players with the opportunity to study with renowned teachers in all musical genres including classical, early music, jazz, slap, Latin, and electric. A special feature of the inaugural institute will be a day-long celebration of Hinton’s long and distinguished career on Thursday, June 12.
The Institute is part of a new relationship between Oberlin and the Hinton estate which assures that the legacy of “The Dean of Jazz bassists” will be kept alive well into the future. Oberlin’s partnership with the Hinton estate was facilitated by Oberlin Professor of Jazz Studies and Double Bass Peter Dominguez and Special Collections Librarian Jeremy Smith.
The roots of Dominguez’s relationship with Hinton go back to 1979. [Read more…]
“I’m excited because I feel like it might be one of the better things that I’ve put together,” Apollo’s Fire artistic director Jeanette Sorrell exclaimed about her new program during a recent interview. While putting together her previous Appalachian-inspired program, “Come to the River,” Sorrell said, “I was pretty much a newcomer to the field. This time I feel I’m starting from a deeper place.”
In their “Message from The Directors”, ChamberFest Cleveland artist directors Diana and Franklin Cohen write, “According to the Greek philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras, the number three is the ‘noblest of digits’ because it is the only number that equals the sum of its parts. Like that noble number, ChamberFest Cleveland’s third anniversary season, THREE!, is possible because of what has come before.”
on’t be surprised if the second concert by Cleveland’s new choral ensemble, Contrapunctus, at St. John’s Cathedral in downtown Cleveland on Friday, June 6 at 7:30 pm, is missing a few voice parts — tenors and basses, in fact. British countertenor David Acres, who founded and conducts the ensemble, planned it that way.
Genuine beaming smiles are a rare sight among high school students, those supremely self-conscious paragons of effortful cool. But on June 2, dozens of delighted adolescent grins shone forth from the stage of Severance Hall, an occurrence even more remarkable for taking place in the decidedly unhip venue of a classical music concert hall. Sharing the stage with such an exciting performer as pianist, singer, and songwriter Ben Folds elicited not only unembarrassed smiles, but also head banging and exuberant playing from the young musicians of the Contemporary Youth Orchestra (CYO), directed by Liza Grossman.
The Cleveland Orchestra’s production of Janácek’s Cunning Little Vixen was a tough act to follow, but the last concert of the Severance Hall season under guest conductor Vladimir Jurowski proved to be anything but anti-climactic. A sumptuous performance of an hour-long suite from Prokofiev’s ballet, Cinderella, a spellbinding reading of Britten’s Violin Concerto by Simone Lamsma and the opportunity to hear a very early Stravinsky work, the Scherzo fantastique, op. 3, added up to a surprisingly brilliant season finale. I heard the first of three concerts on Thursday, May 29.
“Summers @ Severance,” a new series on Friday evenings in August, will feature The Cleveland Orchestra in three performances at Severance Hall.