by Daniel Hathaway
The Cleveland Chamber Symphony’s second annual NEOSonicFest opened on a very informal note with a performance by reVoice on Friday Evening, March 20 at Survival Kit Gallery in the sprawling complex of old warehouses called the 78th Street Studios on Cleveland’s West Side. The event, featuring mezzo-soprano Megan Elk, sopranos Susan Fletcher & Rachel Morrison and pianist Lorenzo Salvagni, seemed as improvisatory as some of the numbers on the playlist. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
“I could not make this opera stranger than it already is,” Oberlin Opera Theater director Jonathon Field told ClevelandClassical in a recent interview. After witnessing the opening night of Oberlin’s production of La finta giardiniera, with its jumbo-sized rabbits that march in slow motion across the stage, I have to disagree. If this opera was strange to begin with, Field didn’t hold back in giving it an extra nudge off the deep end. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“I’m really excited to be back in Cleveland this weekend. It is an honor, and a very important step in my career to be making my Severance Hall debut with The Cleveland Orchestra,” pianist Daniil Trifonov said during a telephone conversation. “Of course I’ve been to Severance Hall on numerous occasions to hear concerts as a listener, but this is a dream that is finally coming true.”
On Thursday, March 19 at 7:30, Daniil Trifionov will perform Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 for piano, trumpet, and orchestra, featuring TCO’s principal trumpet, Michael Sachs, under the direction of Jahja Ling. The all-Russian program will also include Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2. Additional performances will take place on Saturday at 8:00pm and Sunday afternoon at 3:00.
When we spoke on Wednesday morning, Trifonov had only arrived back in Cleveland the evening before. Earlier in the month, the pianist was recording a new CD to be released later this year. Last Friday, he performed a sold-out recital for Boston’s Celebrity Series. I began our conversation by asking him to say a few words about the Shostakovich concerto. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
If the Baldwin Wallace Art Song Festival has its way, the tradition of intimate performances of vocal music for one singer and one pianist will continue long into the future. And if all such recitals were as engagingly sung and played as the one that Canadian baritone Elliot Madore and Russian-born pianist Natalia Katyukova gave in Gamble Auditorium at Baldwin Wallace Conservatory on Sunday evening, March 15, that art form has a secure destiny. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
If Friday evening’s CityMusic Cleveland concert ended up being a bit topsy-turvy, it was for a good reason. The order of events in the printed program began with Edvard Grieg’s first Peer Gynt suite and ended with Arvo Pärt’s Symphony No. 4, with Carl Nielsen’s violin concerto in the middle. In actuality, the first and last pieces were flipped, making for a much more effective sequence. [Read more…]
by Jane Berkner
If the goal of the Cleveland Orchestra’s Fridays @ 7 series is to create more diversity in their audiences, the concert in Severance Hall on Friday, March 13 can be considered a fantastic success. Curated by Jamey Haddad, the pre- and post concerts that sandwich the orchestra’s performance included music from singer, songwriter and accordion player Magda Giannikou, students from Oberlin’s performance and Improvisation Ensembles, and the eclectic jazz and funk band Snarky Puppy. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
A large and conspicuously intergenerational audience — unusually so for a Thursday evening — gathered at Severance Hall for The Cleveland Orchestra concert on March 12. Did they turn out in droves to hear guest conductor Fabio Luisi lead Beethoven’s seventh symphony? Or to hear Jean-Yves Thibaudet play Liszt’s second piano concerto? Maybe both. Whatever drew the crowds in, they experienced a distinguished evening of music. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Although Matthias Ziegler plays principal flute for the Zürich Chamber Orchestra, the versatile musician has earned worldwide attention for his “solo polyphonic” concerts on flute and his electroacoustically amplified contrabass flute. On Thursday, March 19 at 7:30, courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ziegler will bring his spectrum of fascinating sounds to the intimate space of Transformer Station in Ohio City.
“I’m looking forward to the gig,” Ziegler said during a Skype video conversation from his home in Zürich. “I’ve been talking with Tom Welsh at the Museum for some time, and now it finally worked out.” The concert will include music from his album, Ukati, as well as from his most recent recording, La Rusna. “I’ll be bringing the alto and normal flutes too, but the focus will be on the bass and contrabass flutes. It will be a mixed program with some experimental abstract things, as well as some pleasant, ear-catching music.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
When Brad Wells founded the innovative vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth in 2009, he wanted to explore all the possibilities of the human voice. “Before I studied classical technique, my experience with the voice was initially pop, rock, jazz, and then classical,” Wells said during a recent telephone conversation. “When I got into choral and solo singing, as well as composing for the voice, on the one hand the Western classical style struck me as very powerful, beautiful and expressive. But at the same time, I felt that from a composer’s point of view, there were all sorts of colors, gestures and timbres that were out there still waiting to be harnessed.”
On Friday, March 20 at 7:30 in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Wells and his eight-member ensemble, will present a concert featuring music from their 2014 Grammy-winning album, including ensemble member Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Partita for 8 Voices. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
This weekend, NEOSonicFest 2015 begins its five-concert festival of new music sponsored by Cleveland Chamber Symphony in partnership with local new music ensembles. (See our concert listings page for times and locations.) “We’re excited about our second festival,” CCS conductor Steven Smith said during a telephone conversation. “This year we’ve added new venues and some new groups too. Our goal is to broaden the Festival each year, and the addition of new and alternative venues helps to underscore the idea that the performing space can enhance the music that is playing. I think that is especially true when it comes to contemporary music.”
The festival kicks off on Friday, March 20 with a 9:00 pm performance by reVoice at Survival Kit Gallery. Mezzo-soprano Megan Elk and soprano Susan Fletcher will be joined by guest soprano Rachel Morrison and pianist Lorenzo Salvagni in an evening of music by Morton Feldman, John Cage, Stephen T. Griebling, Ricky Ian Gordon, Meredith Monk, Pauline Oliveros, Keegan Meuris and Philip Glass. [Read more…]