by Daniel Hathaway
Pity poor Johannes Brahms, whose op. 51, no. 1 quartet came last on the program played by the excellent Belcea Quartet on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series last Tuesday evening at Plymouth Church. He didn’t really stand a chance after the emotionally wrenching performance the quartet had just given of Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
Last Sunday afternoon’s screening of Harold Lloyd’s silent film comedy Speedy delighted the Stambaugh Auditorium audience in Youngstown and offered improvised organ accompaniment by Todd Wilson. This type of improvisation was common in the 1920’s and even helped the late, noted musicologist Donald Grout pay for his higher education. [Read more…]
Opera Circle is seeking both volunteer singers and paid chorus leads of all voice types (sopranos, altos, tenors, basses) to join the production of the one-act opera Cavalleria rusticana by Mascagni, to be performed on Friday, November 21 and Sunday, November 23, 2014 at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights. The chorus will be singing partly off stage from music and partly on stage from memory. The paid chorus leads will need to memorize the on stage sections. For volunteers, memorization is optional. Email Opera Circle or call 216.441.2822. Click here for general information.
by Mike Telin
Over the past five seasons, the Cleveland-based baroque ensemble Les Délices has often treated audiences to concerts that highlight the refined music from the Royal Court of King Louis XIV. This weekend the ensemble presents two concerts that feature another side of the music from that court with “The Musketeers,” a colorful program featuring baroque oboes, bassoon, baroque guitar, theorbo, and percussion inspired by Louis XIV’s oboe band, Les Mousquetaire.
On Saturday, October 25 at 8:00 pm at The Bop Stop and on Sunday, October 26 at 4:00 pm in the Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church, Les Délices artist director Debra Nagy will be joined by her baroque oboe colleagues Stephen Bard and Kathryn Montoya, baroque bassoonist Anna Marsh, percussionist Michelle Humphreys, and guitarist and theorboist, Simon Martyn-Ellis, in performances of music by Lully, Hotteterre, Philidor and others. [Read more…]
by J.D. Goddard
On Friday evening, October 17, a standing-room only crowd gathered in the sanctuary of Saint John’s Cathedral to hear the magnificent Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst in a free concert that featured Bach’s Missa Brevis, BWV 232. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
On Saturday, October 25 at 7:30 pm in the University of Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall, Frank Jacobs will conduct the Masterworks Chorale of the Summit Choral Society in Johannes Brahms’s German Requiem. The performance marks twenty-five years to the day since the chorus sang that work on its first concert.
“It seems like yesterday. Twenty-five years ago, we were just an upstart organization with no money,” Jacobs recalled in a telephone conversation. “We did the concert at Cuyahoga Falls High School in English with Brahms’s original accompaniment of two pianos — we threw in harp and timpani for extra color. Now, 25 years later on the same date, we’re doing it with full orchestra and in the way that it needs to be heard, in German. The music itself is so moving and powerful. It’s a universal statement of what we all face in this human condition — death.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
In his introduction to Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ’s January of 2014 tiny desk concert, NPR music producer, Tom Huizenga wrote: “Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ is a veteran when it comes to taking risks, and it pays off in her compelling music.
“As a young girl in Vietnam, she knew she wanted to be a traditional musician, even though it was a world dominated by men. It was risky, then, when she pestered a master teacher for three years to give her lessons. He finally gave in, taking her on as an apprentice.”
On Sunday, October 26 at 7:30 pm in the Transformer Station, The Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series will present the masterful player of the 16-string “dan Tranh”—a zither with moveable bridges — and the pitch-bending monochord, dan Bau. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
Standing ovations can be awkward. A few people will stand, and gradually the rest of the audience will follow suit, preferring to comply but almost reluctant to do it. You might not find a more genuine standing ovation than the one classical guitarist Anton Baranov received last Thursday night, October 14, in Oberlin’s Kulas Recital Hall. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
Last Saturday night under the direction of Randall Craig Fleischer, the Youngstown Symphony began its pops series with One Singular Sensation: A Tribute to the Music of Marvin Hamlisch. All three soloists had worked with Hamlisch (1944-2012), and they seemed to lend a special authenticity to the concert. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Nearly a year ago, the surprising news that an upscale Ohio City jazz club, The Bop Stop, had been donated to The Music Settlement piqued one’s curiosity: how would the school use that attractive, crescent-shaped facility? [Read more…]