by Yevhen Gulenko, guest writer
Have you ever heard a guitar tell a story? The thought may sound silly until you have heard the Croatian master Ana Vidović play. She is the rare musician who can make her instrument sound sublime, whether interpreting the Baroque works of Bach or performing arrangements of modern popular classics by Toru Takemitsu. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Performing to a full house, the Masterworks Chorale of Summit Choral Society began its 26th season under the new leadership of artistic director Marie Bucoy-Calavan with warm, confident performances of Johannes Brahms’s Schicksalslied and Wolfgang Amadè Mozart’s Requiem on Sunday, November 1 in Akron’s Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Jones
The truism holds that French aristocrats before the Revolution danced time away in utter complacency, refusing to change in the face of the inevitable. The image is probably true with respect to most things that would have mattered to those who stormed the Bastille. But in the world of music, things were changing decades before the Revolution. Writing within a framework of courtly elegance that would have pleased Marie Antoinette, composers were also pushing the boundaries of their music with wit, irony, turmoil, and glimmers of Romantic self-consciousness. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin and Daniel Hathaway
There are a lot of things to consider when choosing an opera that will fit the voices of undergraduate singers. Oberlin Opera Theater director Jonathon Field had both practical and philosophical considerations in mind when he decided to produce Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, which opens for a four-performance run in Hall Auditorium on the Oberlin College campus on Wednesday, November 11.
“If you look at the makeup of any college vocal studies program, most likely 80% of the students are female,” Field said in a telephone conversation. “Lucretia offers a lot of roles and opportunities for female singers. And singing Britten always makes students better performers. I think it’s the way that the words fit the musical lines so completely. It’s quasi-melodic, yet the singers have to get the pitches absolutely right for it to make emotional sense. The music is rhythmically complex, but not impossibly dense. And like a lot of his operas, Lucretia is lightly scored, so that’s perfect for young voices.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Like many of us, Benjamin Bagby first encountered the epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf during junior high school. A few years later, Bagby became fixated with the sound of medieval music. And as he writes on his website, “The Anglo-Saxons would say that this was simply my wyrd (personal destiny).” This weekend, Apollo’s Fire will present three performances of Beowulf performed by singer/storyteller and medieval harpist Benjamin Bagby, beginning on Friday, November 13 at 8:00 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights. See our concert listings page for additional times and locations.
“Humankind has always been fascinated with tales of man over monster,” Bagby said during a telephone conversation from his home in Paris. “It’s an archetypical story that still fascinates us today.” The fact that a new Star Wars film is about to be released supports Bagby’s thoughts. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Crossover artist Gabriel Bolkosky, who studied classical violin at the Cleveland Institute of Music, then jazz violin at the University of Michigan, was introduced to the music of Argentine nuevo tango composer Astor Piazzolla by friend and cellist Derek Snyder. “He got me interested in Piazzolla a little over a decade ago,” Bolkosky said in a telephone conversation. “Pretty much from the moment I first heard it, I realized it was music I’d been wanting to play my whole life. His music and its history are so rich, and his musical journey is one that I relate to and admire. Something in the music speaks very deeply to my heart, and because it opens itself up to jazz, it’s the perfect crossover style for classical players.”
Gabriel Bolkosky will gather a mixed group of his classical and jazz friends to play his own reworkings of music by Piazzolla and Miles Davis on Friday, November 13 at 8:00 pm in the Metro Campus Auditorium at Cuyahoga Community College. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“We’re an ensemble that usually forgoes performing in churches in favor of the less traditional warehouse settings,” FiveOne Experimental Orchestra executive director Jeremy Allen told us during a recent telephone conversation. “When we’re looking for a reverberant Cathedral, we usually look for a post-industrial one like the Screw Factory. But when the opportunity came about to perform this concert, it was a no brainer.” On Friday, November 13 at 8:00 pm at Disciples Christian Church in Cleveland Heights, FiveOne Experimental Orchestra (51XO) will present Sacrum Silentium.
In addition to the gorgeous sanctuary with its vaulted ceiling, the church presented the group with the chance to perform with organ. The sacred setting also inspired the group to shape their program in a way that would promote a sense of repose and contemplation. “How often do we really stop to listen and reflect?” Allen said. “Society doesn’t really promote these things, so we have to be intentional about creating these opportunities.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The Akron Symphony Orchestra will continue its Classic Series on Saturday, November 14 at 8:00 pm in E.J. Thomas Hall. The concert, under the direction of celebrated guest conductor JoAnn Falletta, will include works by Roussel, Copland, and Brahms.
“It’s been a long time since I last conducted in Akron, and I’m delighted to be coming back,” the engaging, Grammy-award-winning conductor said via telephone. “Christopher Wilkins and I have known each other for a long time. We’re really good friends, and I’m happy he invited me.”
Falletta, who serves as the Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, will open Saturday’s concert with the second suite from Albert Roussel’s Bacchus and Ariadne. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Hailed as “…one of America’s most satisfying — and most enterprising — quartets,” by the Los Angeles Times, the Calder Quartet, Benjamin Jacobson and Andrew Bulbrook, violins, Jonathan Moerschel, viola, and Eric Byers, cello, is an ensemble of distinction. The Quartet returns to the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series on Monday, November 16 at 7:30 pm with a performance at Transformer Station. The program will include works by Bjarnason, Britten, and Beethoven.
Due to the Quartet’s touring schedule we were unable to arrange a live interview, although violinist Andrew Bulbrook graciously agreed to answer questions by e-mail. [Read more…]
by Carlyn Kessler
On Sunday afternoon, October 25, Arts Renaissance Tremont presented the third concert of its 25th Season, “Franklin Cohen and Friends,” at Pilgrim Church in Tremont — a delightful autumn afternoon of clarinet and chamber music. Departing from the printed program, the concert opened with Mozart’s Trio in E-flat, K. 498 “Kegelstatt,” featuring pianist Rafael Skorka, clarinetist Franklin Cohen, and violist Kirsten Docter. “Kegelstatt” is German for the location where one would play “skittles,” a lawn game similar to bowling that was popular in Mozart’s era. [Read more…]