by J.D. Goddard
On Sunday, June 19, I put on my hiking boots, picked up my backpack, filled my canteen, loaded up on beef jerky, and journeyed out into the wilds of Cuyahoga Valley National Park to hear the Cuyahoga Valley Chamber Players present a program of works by Jacob, Quantz, Dvořák, Roussel, Mozart, and Piazzola in the Happy Days Lodge. [Read more…]
by Neil McCalmont
On Friday, July 1 at 8 pm in Warner Concert Hall, the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute will close its faculty concerts with a masterwork by a titan of Western culture: J.S. Bach’s Mass in b minor, BWV 232. The institute traditionally selects one magnum opus per season, but this summer has chosen two: Handel’s Concerti Grossi, Op. 3 (the concert was on June 24), and the Bach mass. For an added twist, the mass will be performed with one singer, one instrumentalist per part, a decision that has sparked fistfights in the past.
The work’s history is complicated, as Bach originally wrote the “Kyrie and Gloria,” “Sanctus,” and “Crucifixus” earlier in his career for different purposes. Though the composer was nearly blind in his last years, he revised these movements accordingly and completed the work in 1749, only a year before his death. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The eighth in a series of articles highlighting ChamberFest artists
Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat (“A Soldier’s Tale”) tells a timeless parable about a young soldier who sells his fiddle — and his soul — to the devil in order to achieve unlimited gains in life. On Saturday, July 2 at 8:00 pm at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, ChamberFest Cleveland will present Stravinsky’s groundbreaking work on the final concert of the festival.
Narrated by Dorothy Silver, this new production will feature life-sized puppetry, created and performed by Talespinner Children’s Theatre, and will include video mapping technology by T. Paul Lowry. Click here to watch a video of ChamberFest co-directors Franklin and Diana Cohen talk about this not-to-be-missed show. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Jones
The Palace Theatre at Drottningholm, a royal residence on a beautiful lake not far from Stockholm, is celebrating its 250th anniversary this summer. Replacing an earlier baroque theatre destroyed in a fire, the new theatre was used steadily during the second half of the 18th century by the opera-loving Swedish king, Gustav III.
In an operatic turn of fate, Gustav was assassinated in 1792 during a masquerade at Stockholm’s Royal Opera House — a story revisited in Verdi’s opera, Un ballo in maschera.
After Gustav’s death, operas ceased at Drottningholm. The theatre was abandoned and turned into a place to store old furniture. [Read more…]
by Neil McCalmont
Before a performer set foot onstage at the United Methodist Church in Chagrin Falls on Monday, June 27, the solemn title to ChamberFest Cleveland’s “Last Words” set the tone for the evening — this was not going to be music you’d whistle along to. [Read more…]
by Neil McCalmont
On Saturday, June 25 at Case Western Reserve’s Harkness Chapel, ChamberFest Cleveland presented “(Fairy) Tales and Tales of the Macabre,” continuing the series’ fascinating programming with even more interesting performances. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin & Daniel Hathaway
On Saturday afternoon, June 25, the Cleveland Museum of Art continued its centenary celebration with musical events commemorating the Summer Solstice. At 3:00 pm in the Ames Family Atrium, the New York-based new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound presented an alluring performance of John Luther Adams’s Ten Thousand Birds. Written for the Ensemble and designed by its artistic director Alan Pierson, the work follows the cycle of a day, beginning with morning bird songs before moving into the afternoon, evening, and night, ultimately returning to morning. [Read more…]
by Kelly Ferjutz
special to ClevelandClassical.com
Many aspects of Ohio Light Opera’s productions are moving forward along with their repertoire, which is expanding beyond the traditional Gilbert & Sullivan oeuvre and the European Operetta into an exploration of early American musicals and Broadway masterpieces of the Golden Age. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The seventh in a series of articles highlighting ChamberFest artists
Composers can be inspired by many things. A visit to a special place, an event, or listening to a piece of music can serve as the impetus to sit down and start writing. Composer and violist Kurt Rohde said that he found inspiration while preparing for a performance of Beethoven’s Op. 127 string quartet with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble.
“Op. 127 happens to be my favorite Beethoven Quartet,” the Rome and Berlin prize-winner said during a telephone conversation. “I was inspired by the first movement because musically it does everything wrong in the most perfect way, and the result is this sublime, even extra-musical experience.”
On Friday, July 1 at 8:00 pm in Reinberger Chamber Music Hall at Severance Hall, ChamberFest Cleveland will present Kurt Rohde’s …maestoso…misterioso for amplified violin, viola and assorted items. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
Violinist Yura Lee gave a splendid solo recital on Wednesday evening in the high-ceilinged west gallery at Transformer Station as part of this year’s Chamberfest Cleveland. It was compact — slightly more than an hour without intermission — with a well-planned arc of music, all of which was performed with style and virtuosity. [Read more…]