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Archives for April 2016

Cleveland Orchestra this week: a chat with harpist Yolanda Kondonassis

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by Mike Telin

KONDONASSIS-SMITHMusic from the Classical era will be on tap when guest conductor Jane Glover makes a return visit to Severance Hall. On Thursday, April 14 at 7:30 pm, she will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in performances of Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 6 (“Le Matin”) and Wolfgang Amadè Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp and Symphony No. 39.

Mozart’s pieces will be featured during the Orchestra’s Fridays@7 Series on April 15, and the full program will be repeated on Saturday, April 16 at 8:00 pm. On Sunday, April 17 the Orchestra will travel to Finney Chapel for a 4:00 performance on the Oberlin Artist Recital Series.     [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Women’s Committee hosts luncheon & conversation with Robert Vernon

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by Daniel Hathaway

VERNON-Robert-TCOThis summer, Cleveland Orchestra principal viola Robert Vernon will retire after serving in that position since 1976. Before he steps down from his illustrious career in the ensemble, The Cleveland Orchestra Women’s Committee will honor him with a luncheon at Westwood Country Club in Rocky River on Friday, April 15 at 12 Noon.

On that occasion, a conversation with Vernon, the longest-tenured string principal in the history of The Cleveland Orchestra, will be moderated by one of the newest members of its staff. [Read more…]

Amir ElSaffar brings his
“Rivers of Sound” to CMA

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by Mike Telin

Amir ElSaffarA recipient of the 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, trumpeter, santur player, vocalist, and composer Amir ElSaffar easily moves between the musical worlds of classical, contemporary jazz, and music from the Middle East, particularly Iraqi maqam.

On Friday, April 15 at 7:30 pm in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium, CMA’s Performing Arts Series will present Amir ElSaffar’s Rivers of Sound, a 17-member ensemble of musicians from all over the world, representing a broad spectrum of traditions from maqam to American jazz. [Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Manuel Barrueco talks about his April 16 concert

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by Mike Telin

BARRUECO-ManuelReading Manuel Barrueco’s biography, it quickly becomes apparent that the legendary guitarist and teacher has done just about as much as a classical guitarist can do. (Click here and see for yourself.) While Cleveland audiences have been treated to the artistry of many of his students over the past few years, it has been some time since the master himself has played a solo recital in town.

On Saturday, April 16 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church, Manuel Barrueco will make his much-anticipated return to the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society stage with a program featuring works by Sylvius Leopold Weiss, J.S. Bach, Fernando Sor, Moreno Torroba, Joaquin Turina, and Isaac Albeniz.

We spoke to the engaging Manuel Barrueco by telephone and began by asking him to share his thoughts on his program.   [Read more…]

Clint Needham’s Sounds of Akron to debut at E.J. Thomas this Saturday

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by Mike Telin

Clint Needham-09What does Akron sound like to you? This is the question the Akron Symphony Orchestra and composer Clint Needham asked when they invited Akron area residents to download the iOS or Android apps and upload their recordings to the Sounds of Akron website from late last spring through the fall.

Those became the inspiration for his new collaborative work, Sounds of Akron: City Meets Symphony, which will be premiered by the Akron Symphony at E.J. Thomas Hall under the direction of Christopher Wilkins on April 16 at 8:00 pm. The program will also include Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 featuring soprano Christine Brandes. A pre-concert celebration will begin at 6:00 pm. [Read more…]

Boston organist Christian Lane to play at Plymouth Church on April 12

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by Daniel Hathaway

LANE-Christian“My programs are generally conceived as large arcs,” organist Christian Lane said in a telephone conversation from Boston. “They always look funny on paper, but I think a lot about how pieces are going to flow from one to the next in a broad scope. My recital at Plymouth on April 12 will cover a lot of ground, except for the Über-Romantic.”

Lane, who served for a number of years as assistant organist at Harvard University’s Memorial Church, took up new duties last August at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Brookline Massachusetts, “a wonderful parish that really cares about good music,” he said. [Read more…]

Romanian Gypsy band
Fanfare Ciocărlia to play
at Cleveland Museum of Art

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by Mike Telin

12-Fanfare-CiocarliaThe story of how Fanfare Ciocărlia, a Gypsy brass band from the isolated village of Zece Prăjini in northeastern Romania, came to be a driving force on world music stages around the globe is one for the silver screen. In 1996 Henry Ernst, a German traditional music enthusiast found himself near the village re-fueling his car. “I had a chat with a farmer who asked me why I was in Romania,” Ernst recalled during a recent interview. “I told him that I liked traditional Romanian music, and he said ‘if you like that, you should go to the next village a few kilometers away and you’ll find Gypsies with a brass music tradition.’ It sounded interesting to me so I said ‘Why not? Let’s go.’” [Read more…]

Joffrey, Cleveland Orchestra Partner In Psycho Thrillers (April 7)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Judith-BluebeardThe Cleveland Orchestra’s newest collaboration with Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet brought a pair of dark, suspenseful stage works by Béla Bartók to Severance Hall on April 7 (with repeat performances through April 10). Nine Joffrey dancers and two fine singers shared the crowded stage with music director Franz Welser-Möst and the orchestra for performances of the ballet The Miraculous Mandarin and the one-act opera Bluebeard’s Castle that were riveting and chilling and made imaginative use of minimal stage gear and props. Read the review at Classical Voice North America

Chagrin Concert Series: “The Poet Speaks” — reflections by artistic director Hristo Popov

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by Daniel Hathaway

POPOVOn Sunday, April 10 at 3:00 pm, the Chagrin Concert Series will present its final concert of the season at Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls. We emailed artistic director Hristo Popov some questions about the series and Sunday’s program.

Daniel Hathaway: What’s in store for the audience this Sunday afternoon in Chagrin Falls?

Hristo Popov: The last concert of the our season features Johannes Brahms’s Zwei Gesänge, Op. 91, performed by mezzo-soprano Lara Nie, cellist Kent Collier, and pianist Sungeun Kim; Manuel de Falla’s Siete Canciones Populares Españolas performed by myself, Lara and Sungeun; and ends with Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet performed by the previously mentioned instrumentalists plus Barton Samuel Rotberg on violin and Wanda Sobieska on viola. [Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Łukasz Kuropaczewski & Maciej Frąckiewicz (Mar. 12)

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by Mike Telin

Kuropaczewki-FrackiewiczWhen Łukasz Kuropaczewski presented his remarkable Cleveland Classical Guitar Society debut recital in October of 2014, the powerhouse guitarist thrilled audiences with a performance that was technically brilliant and musically alluring. On Saturday, March 12 at Plymouth Church, the Polish guitarist returned to Cleveland, this time sharing the CCGS stage with the powerhouse accordionist (and his countryman), Maciej Frąckiewicz. Once again, the results were stunning. [Read more…]

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