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Archives for February 2016

Cleveland Orchestra: Herbert Blomstedt conducts Berwald & Dvořák (Feb. 19)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Conducting is one of the few professions where you can make your debut at the age of 8 (as the late Lorin Maazel did) and still remain fully in the game at the age of 88 (as Herbert Blomstedt was last weekend at Severance Hall). Leading an eccentric symphony by his fellow Swede, Franz Berwald, and what many regard as Antonín Dvořák’s symphonic masterwork, Blomstedt was at the center of a love-fest generated by the players of The Cleveland Orchestra and enjoyed by an enthusiastic audience. [Read more…]

Nevermind, French baroque ensemble at Fairchild Chapel, Oberlin (Feb. 23)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Nevermind-Oberlin-022316Nevermind, which describes itself as “un jeune ensemble de quatre musiciens et amis issus du Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris,” visited the Oberlin Conservatory of Music this week at the behest of baroque flute professor Michael Lynn to give master classes to historical performance students. The three-year-old ensemble of “musicians and friends” also delighted a capacity audience with a concert of French Baroque music in Fairchild Chapel early Tuesday evening. Those 90 minutes count as one of the most stimulating baroque music experiences these ears have ever witnessed. [Read more…]

Chamber music at Arts Renaissance Tremont
(Feb. 21)

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by Timothy Robson

ART-Feb-21-2016It was a bright, crisp winter afternoon this past Sunday – a good day to be out and around – and many people decided to take advantage of the mild weather to almost fill Pilgrim Church on W.14th Street, for a very attractive chamber music concert sponsored by Arts Renaissance Tremont. [Read more…]

Les Délices: “Folly of Youth” at Harkness Chapel, CWRU (Feb. 20)

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by Christine Jay

Rubens-fall-of-phaetonDoing stupid things when young is natural. Two epic failures in youth — alas, fatal ones — are found in the myths of Icarus and Phaeton. Both are ambitious teenagers, their unrelenting and unchecked egos inducing catastrophe. Although similarly bold, the Les Délices program titled “Folly of Youth” at Case Western Reserve University’s Harkness Chapel on February 20 delighted and enthralled, with no signs of godly demise. [Read more…]

CD Review: Apollo’s Fire — Sephardic Journey

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by Julian Ring

AF Sephardic CDMusicians touring foreign lands might absorb traces of a region’s musical vocabulary. But Sephardic Jews didn’t have much of a choice after their expulsion from what is now Israel around 700 BCE and from Spain in 1492. Encountering hostility everywhere they settled, Spain’s Jews spent centuries searching for a new home. They carried their prayers and songs with them as they traveled across the Iberian Peninsula, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean. [Read more…]

CIM Opera to stage Hector Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict February 24-27

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by Mike Telin & Daniel Hathaway

CIM_Beatrice_Benedict_1Directed by David Bamberger, CIM Opera Theater will present four performances of Hector Berlioz’s comic opera Béatrice et Bénédict in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music beginning on Wednesday, February 24 at 7:30 pm and continuing through Saturday, February 27. An adaptation of William Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing, Berlioz conceived the piece as early as 1833, but completed it only in 1862 at the behest of a casino owner in Baden-Baden, Germany, where it was first performed at the Theater der Stadt in August of that year.

“It’s not performed that often, and most people only know it from the overture, which is such a great piece in itself,” conductor Harry Davidson said in a telephone conversation. “For the opera, Berlioz took out all the tragic elements that appear in the play — Héro being accused of adultery and her father disowning her — none of that is there. But it’s very stageworthy and the music is really quite delightful and charming.” [Read more…]

Blue Streak Ensemble to present “Down Home Classical” February 25

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by Carlyn Kessler

Brouwer-Margaret“I thought the name ‘Down Home Classical’ fit perfectly because chamber music originally started in the home,” composer Margaret Brouwer explained in a telephone conversation. “Back before television, families would get together and play chamber music in the home, and all of this music is very much that kind of chamber music. And the place where we’re performing, Dunham Tavern, is like a great big living room. The audience will be sitting pretty close to the musicians, which will be almost like a home environment.”

On Thursday, February 25 at 7:30 pm at Cleveland’s Dunham Tavern Museum, the Blue Streak Ensemble (BSE), directed by award-winning composer Margaret Brouwer, will present “Down Home Classical,” an evening of American porch music. “It’s very American music,” said Brouwer. “There are a lot of beautiful melodies, wonderful sparkling sounds, and fun, catchy rhythms.” [Read more…]

BW to stage Peter Brook’s The Tragedy of Carmen Feb. 25-28

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by Daniel Hathaway

Carmen-BrookGeorge Bizet’s Carmen regularly appears in lists of the top ten operas performed across the globe, but like Handel’s Messiah, there’s no definitive version of the piece. The score of Carmen has been touched by many hands since its Paris premiere in 1875, as it has evolved from a comic opera with spoken dialogue to a grand opera with sung recitatives.

The most radical version of the work, Peter Brook’s La Tragédie de Carmen, which premiered at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in New York in 1981, reduces Bizet’s four acts lasting about 2-½ hours to one act lasting 85 minutes. Brook also stripped out the chorus, reduced the orchestra to 14 players, and cut many of the original elements from the score.

BW Opera Theater will present Brook’s The Tragedy of Carmen in the Robert Allman Theater on BW’s Berea campus from February 25 to 28, with evening performances running from Thursday through Sunday at 7:30 pm, and matinees on Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 pm. The production will be directed by Victoria Bussert, BW’s director of musical theater. We reached her by phone to get her take on the Peter Brooks version of the show. [Read more…]

CMA: JACK Quartet — a conversation with violinist Ari Streisfeld

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by Mike Telin

07-JACK-QuartetIf you ask people to name the string quartets who have the ability embedded in their DNA to perform experimental music comprised of polyrhythms, extended techniques, and microtonality, the JACK Quartet is sure to be at the top of everyone’s list. Next week, violinists Christopher Otto and Ari Streisfeld, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Kevin McFarland will present a mini-residency in Cleveland as part of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series.

On Tuesday, March 1 at 7:30 pm in Transformer Station the JACK will perform Georg Friedrich Haas’s pioneering String Quartet No. 3. Then on Wednesday, March 2 at 7:30 pm, the quartet will take the stage in the Museum’s Gartner Auditorium for a concert featuring works by Guillaume de Machaut, John Zorn, Claudio Monteverdi, and Caroline Shaw. The evening will also include two world premieres by Cenk Ergün. “We’re very excited about these concerts,” violinist Ari Streisfeld said during a telephone interview. “We hope everyone will come with open ears and open minds.” [Read more…]

CMA: a conversation with composer Cenk Ergün about his new works for the JACK Quartet

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by Mike Telin

ERGÜN-CenkA native of Turkey, Cenk Ergün (pronounced “Jenk”) is a New York-based composer and improviser whose music has been performed by ensembles such as Sō Percussion, Alarm Will Sound, and Ensemble Laboratorium. As an improviser, he performs electronics with Alvin Curran, Jason Treuting, and Jeff Snyder. His music has been performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, The Roulette, The Stone, and internationally at Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, Zurich’s Tonhalle, and Istanbul’s Babylon. Ergün’s recordings include The Art of the Fluke with Alvin Curran and Sō Percussion’s Cage 100: The Bootleg Series. His first solo composition record, Nana, was released in May 2014 on Carrier Records.

On Wednesday, March 2 at 7:30 pm, two world premieres by Cenk Ergün will be performed by the JACK Quartet in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium. The commission was made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Chamber Music America Endowment Fund.

We reached Cenk Ergün by telephone. [Read more…]

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