by Tom Wachunas
Conjuring the spirit of Halloween for just one more night, the November 1 program by the Canton Symphony Orchestra under the enchanted baton (or magic wand?) of Gerhardt Zimmermann, was frightfully delicious. Not that I favor socializing in the netherworld, but from beginning to end, the evening was a magnificent dance with the devil. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
Violinist Andrew Sords and pianist Eriko Izumida performed an audience-pleasing concert on Sunday afternoon, November 1, as part of the Chagrin Concert Series at the Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls. The program of works by Fauré, Ravel, and Franck included several landmarks of the late Romantic violin repertoire, all expertly performed. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Anyone who’s a fan of the long-running television sitcom Cheers will undoubtedly remember the show’s catchy theme song which includes the “philosophical” line, ‘sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.’ Since the BOP STOP began regularly presenting concerts during the fall of 2014, manager Gabe Pollack has taken that line to heart.
He’s usually the first person to say hello when you enter the inviting venue — if he doesn’t know your name, he soon will. And by the time you leave you’ll likely know the names of most of the other audience members, as well as those of the performers. Pollack is the venue’s Sam Malone, and his friendly staff is the supporting cast. Between June 27, 2014 and September 6, 2015 Pollack welcomed nearly 8,000 “Bop Stoppers” to performances at The Music Settlement’s West Side venue. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
Under talented conductor Susan Davenny Wyner, the Warren Philharmonic presented a vibrant, imaginative family concert called Stories, Dances, Tricks and Treats at Christ Episcopal Church in Warren last Sunday, November 1. The opening half more than justified this title and contained a delightful mélange of programmatic compositions. Manuel De Falla’s El Sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat), Ballet Suite No. 1 and Alexander Borodin’s Polovetsian Dances from the opera Prince Igor, the most substantial pieces, received particularly fine performances and enlivened the afternoon. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
This week Steven Plank, the Andrew B. Meldrum Professor of Musicology at Oberlin College, will celebrate his 25th anniversary as director of the Oberlin Collegium Musicum, when over 70 of his former singers gather for a reunion concert on November 7 at 8:00 pm in Warner Concert Hall. Read more about the event here. In a recent compilation CD, CANTEMUS II: Music of the Oberlin Collegium Musicum, Plank leads his top-notch ensemble in stellar performances of seminal works of sacred music from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
There was no need for Opera Circle Cleveland’s collaborative production of The Bartered Bride to try to break down the “fourth wall” between performers and audience at Cleveland’s Bohemian National Hall on Sunday afternoon, October 25: the wall never went up in the first place. As the audience arrived, cast members were already milling about in the auditorium and its corridors, brightly attired in Czech folk costumes, and greeting friends and family. Carrying their instrument cases, members of the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra threaded their way through the throng, and the young acrobats who would appear in the third act were enjoying pastries in the snack bar. It felt like a big family reunion. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Just back from their European tour, The Cleveland Orchestra returns to Severance Hall this weekend for three performances under the direction of guest conductor Gianandrea Noseda. The program will feature Goffredo Petrassi’s Partita (1932) and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. The concerts also mark the long-anticipated return of violinist Leonidas Kavakos. See our concert listings page for times and program variations.
“It’s been quite some time. I look forward to being back in Cleveland and playing with that great orchestra in that wonderful hall,” the engaging violinist said during a telephone conversation from his home in Greece. “I just hope it’s not too cold,” he added with a laugh. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The celebrated collaboration between Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte yielded three of the most popular operas in the repertoire. This week, CIM Opera Theater will present The Marriage of Figaro, the first of those operas, beginning on Wednesday, November 4 at 7:30 in the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Kulas Hall. Performances run through Saturday. The opera will be sung in Italian with English subtitles.
Based on Pierre Beaumarchais’ play The Marriage of Figaro, which had been banned in Vienna due to the plot’s lack of moral restraints, the opera is full of comical, manipulative mind games as Count Almaviva neglects his wife, the Countess Rosina Almaviva, in order to pursue her maid Susanna, who is about to marry his valet Figaro. Luckily, everything works out in the end for all parties. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The story of how flutist Kimberly Zaleski and cellist Trevor Kazarian came to form the duo In2ative is fit for the big screen. After graduating from the Cleveland Institute of Music they both worked in restaurants, until one day they found themselves out of work. It was at that moment that they decided to take the risk.
“We literally went to CoolCleveland and searched for all of the festivals in the area,” Kazarian recalled during a conference call with his musical partner. “We would go to each event, put out a hat, and play. We were paying our rent from tip money, but at the same time we were meeting people and making connections. I feel that a lot of what we have today goes back to that moment of taking the risk, and really going for what we believed in. We’re lucky to be in the situation that we are now.” [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
It takes a special artist to hold an audience completely in thrall for an hour and twenty minutes. Such an artist would be Christian Tetzlaff, who stood all alone with his violin on the stage of Oberlin’s Finney Chapel last Friday evening, charming a large audience with solo works by Eugène Ysaÿe, Johann Sebastian Bach, György Kurtag, and Béla Bartók. [Read more…]