Good Company: A Vocal Ensemble announces a new composer competition open to composers born after January 1, 1990 or who are full time, post-high school students. The ensemble welcomes original, previously-unperformed works for four-part mixed chorus, either a cappella or with piano or organ accompaniment lasting from 3-5 minutes, to be submitted by November 1. The winning piece will be performed on May 17, 2015 and its composer will receive a cash award of $500. Details here.
Archives for September 2014
Cleveland Chamber Music Society: an eventful musical journey with the Han-Setzer-Finckel Trio (September 23)
by Daniel Hathaway
On Tuesday, September 23 at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, the Han-Setzer-Finckel piano trio opened the Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s sixty-fifth season with a beautifully-structured and thrillingly-performed program of trios by Beethoven, Shostakovich and Mendelssohn that first beguiled you, then put you through an emotional wringer, and finally brought you cathartically back home again — with vivid memories of having made an eventful journey. [Read more…]
International Violin Competition of Indianapolis: a conversation with gold medalist Jinjoo Cho
by Mike Telin
On September 5, thirty-seven young violinists representing fourteen countries began their quest to win the Gold Medal at the Ninth Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. After the field had been narrowed to sixteen contestants, and then to six, on Saturday, September 20 the jury announced that Jinjoo Cho was the winner of the competition’s top prize. [Read more…]
CIM Orchestra at Home October 8: a conversation with harpist Rebekah Efthimiou
by Carlyn Kessler
The one thing Rebekah Efthimiou wants everyone to know about Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera’s Concerto for Harp and Orchestra is that it contradicts all stereotypes audiences may have about her instrument. On Wednesday, October 8 beginning at 8:00 pm in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Carl Topilow will lead the CIM Orchestra in a concert featuring Ginastera’s skillfully-crafted concerto. The concert also includes Johann Strauss II’s Overture to “Die Fledermaus” and Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1. [Read more…]
Meridian Arts Ensemble Brass Quintet to open KSU’s Vanguard New Music Guest Artist Series on October 2
by Daniel Hathaway
Kent State University’s New Music Series will get underway on Thursday, October 2 at 8:00 pm in Ludwig Recital Hall with a concert by the Meridian Arts Ensemble brass quartet, featuring music by Cleveland composer Andrew Rindfleisch along with works by Stephen Foster, James Thornton, Amy Williams, Walter Kollo, Giovanni Gabrieli, David Felder and Karlheinz Stockhausen. The performance is part of KSU’s Vanguard New Music Guest Artist Series, which operates in tandem with the university’s New Music Series, Frank Wiley, director. [Read more…]
Belgrade Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony to play concerts at Severance Hall this fall
by Daniel Hathaway
Visiting orchestras are rare on the Cleveland scene, but this fall, we’ll have the opportunity to hear both the Belgrade Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony in concerts at Severance Hall.
The Belgrade Philharmonic will make a whirlwind, four-city tour of the eastern half of the United States in October, playing at Chicago’s Symphony Hall on Monday, October 6, at Severance Hall on Tuesday, October 7, at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland on Wednesday, October 8, and in Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall in New York on Thursday, October 9. [Read more…]
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Quire Cleveland presents exquisite vocal exhibit of Flemish Renaissance Polyphony (September 26)
by Daniel Hathaway
On Friday evening, September 26 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, Ross W. Duffin led the 22 professional singers of Quire Cleveland in a splendid survey of music by fifteenth and sixteenth-century composers who were born in the region we now call Belgium. [Read more…]
Octavio Más-Arocas to make conducting debut with the BW Symphony Orchestra September 26
by Daniel Hathaway
There’ll be a festive fanfare when Spanish-born conductor Octavio Más-Arocas conducts his first concert with the Baldwin Wallace Symphony Orchestra on Friday, September 26, but that new piece by Kevin C. Thompson is only the first of several curtain-raisers BW’s new orchestral maestro has planned in a continuing series he calls “The Symphony Orchestra Fanfare Project.”
Oberlin Orchestra Concert, Colloquium Keep the “Pan-American Dream” Alive
by Daniel Hautzinger
courtesy of Oberlin News Center
As fascism and other forms of dictatorship engulfed Europe in the 1930s and ’40s, the United States began to fear that the whole world would be consumed by such regimes. To prevent totalitarianism’s spread to Latin America, the federal government enacted a “Good Neighbor” policy, in which the U.S. encouraged solidarity between the Americas.
One aspect of that policy was a cultural-exchange program that sent North American composers to Latin America and vice versa. “It had fantastic musical consequences,” says Director of Oberlin Orchestras Raphael Jiménez, citing Latin-inspired works created by Aaron Copland and friendships that blossomed between U.S. composers and their Latin counterparts such as Alberto Ginastera and Heitor Villa-Lobos.
Jiménez and the Oberlin Orchestra will celebrate that spirit of musical solidarity on Saturday, September 27, with an 8 p.m. concert in Finney Chapel showcasing composers of the Americas.
Prior to the performance, Carol Hess, a music professor at the University of California, Davis, will present a talk about the Good Neighbor policy and the state of Latin American classical music in the U.S. Part of Oberlin’s Richard Murphy Musicology Colloquium series, Hess’ talk will take place at 4 p.m. in Stull Recital Hall. >>read on