by Mike Telin
To inaugurate their first season as ensemble in residence at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ohio City’s Hingetown neighborhood in partnership with St. John’s Institute, the Syndicate for the New Arts recently presented two concerts that provided audiences with completely different listening experiences. The concerts also provided a glimpse into the types of out-of-the-box programming the Syndicate might have in store for the future. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Over the years, Baldwin Wallace’s FOCUS Contemporary Music Festival has showcased a long list of composers of our time, ranging from Witold Lutoslawski and Krzysztof Penderecki to Christopher Theofanidis and Chen Yi. The latest guest, Bang on a Can co-founder David Lang, was fêted in three concerts and a convocation from March 16-19, performed by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony and BW’s own ensembles. I caught the final performance featuring six of Lang’s chamber works on Sunday afternoon, March 19 in Gamble Auditorium. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
In his program notes for Lyra (2013), composer Anthony Cheung writes, “The strumming or plucking of a lyre: if Western music has an origin myth, the lyre is inextricably linked to it. Apollo with his lyre, truth emanating from its well-proportioned vibrations. Orpheus soothing all manner of flora and fauna, as well as the keepers of the underworld…. And with Beethoven, modern and ancient mythology are conjoined. When the composer supposedly channels the Orpheus narrative in his fourth piano concerto, he puts the soloist in the heroic role, pitting it against an orchestra of Furies, and makes a lyre of the piano.”
On Thursday, March 31 at 7:30 pm and Saturday, April 2 at 8:00 pm at Severance Hall, Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in performances of Cheung’s Lyra. The program will also include Thomas Adès’s Concentric Paths (for violin and orchestra) with soloist Leila Josefowicz, as well as orchestral excerpts from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. On Wednesday, March 30 at 6:30 pm, Anthony Cheung will present a lecture in Bibbins 224 at the Oberlin Conservatory. [Read more…]
Application deadlines that fall during the month of April include The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra Choruses, the Encore Chamber Music Summer Program, the Bascomb-Little Fund, the Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Women Conductors, and Make Music Cleveland. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
On Thursday, March 31 at 7:30 pm in Transformer Station, the Calder Quartet (Benjamin Jacobson and Andrew Bulbrook, violins, Jonathan Moerschel, viola, and Eric Byers, cello) will present the final concert of their two-year residency as part of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series. The performance coincides with the ensemble’s final residency activities at the Oberlin Conservatory.
“We’re excited to see everybody again,” violinist Andrew Bulbrook said during a telephone interview. “It’s been nice to have had both of these opportunities.”
Thursday’s sold-out concert will begin with Swedish composer Anders Hillborg’s Kongsgaard Variations, a work Bulbrook said appeals to people on many levels. “It’s a beautiful piece, and it references the Arietta theme from Beethoven’s final piano sonata. Years ago we went to Stockholm with Thomas Adès, and that’s when Anders was first put on our radar. I don’t think there are a lot of quartets touring his music in the U.S. at the moment.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
If you’ve never heard a piece of music that features coffee grinders, blenders, cast iron skillets, cheese graters, and Pyrex glass bowls, you’ll have the chance this weekend. On Sunday, April 3 at 4:00 pm in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the CIM New Music Ensemble, under the direction of Keith Fitch, will perform guest composer Robert Paterson’s Star Crossing (1999), I See You (2014-15), and Hell’s Kitchen (2014), a work during which those kitchen appliances will take center stage. The afternoon will also include Julius Eastman’s 1973 classic, Stay On It. On Saturday, April 2 beginning at 1:30 in CIM’s room 113, Robert Paterson will present a lecture about his music. Both events are free and open to the public. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Portions of this article are reprinted from an interview in March of 2015 before Roomful of Teeth performed at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
When Brad Wells founded the innovative vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth in 2009, he wanted to explore all the possibilities of the human voice. “Initially, before I studied classical technique, my experience with the voice was pop, rock, and jazz,” 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.” [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Here’s your opportunity to meet the new executive director of The Cleveland Orchestra. On Tuesday, April 5 at 6:00 pm, the Hudson Chapter of Blossom Friends of The Cleveland Orchestra will sponsor an evening of conversation with André Gremillet, who assumed his new post as executive director of the Orchestra in January following the retirement of Gary Hanson.
Gremillet most recently served as managing director of Australia’s Melbourne Symphony, and before that was president and CEO of the New Jersey Symphony. A native of Quebec, Gremillet is a conservatory-trained pianist who also served for four years as president of Canada’s premier organ-building firm, Casavant Frères. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Men Who Don’t Bite — a bassoon quartet that includes Oberlin Conservatory professor George Sakakeeny, Cleveland Orchestra members Jonathan Sherwin and Barrick Stees, and University of Kansas professor Eric Stomberg — will join Oberlin Conservatory pianist James Howsmon in a benefit concert for Family Promise of Lorain County on Sunday, April 10 at 3:00 pm at First Church, 106 North Main St. in Oberlin.
“We combine serious music skills and a light-hearted sense of humor,” said Sakakeeny about the quartet, whose name refers to the accepted technique of placing one’s lips on the bassoon reed. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
The death of French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez on January 5, 2016, at the age of 90, has prompted a series of remembrances from The Cleveland Orchestra and its members. Boulez was honored by the orchestra just over a year ago at the time of his birthday, and on March 24 at Severance Hall, Franz Welser-Möst led the United States premiere of György Kurtág’s Petite musique solennelle: Homage to Pierre Boulez at 90. [Read more…]