by Daniel Hathaway
On Saturday, June 11, four years after Opera Circle Cleveland first took on Il trovatore at Bohemian National Hall, the company revisited the opera — one of Verdi’s most popular titles — at the Ohio Theatre in PlayHouse Square. A strong cast of singers and a fine professional orchestra led by Joel Smirnoff lifted the production well above some shortcomings of staging. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The fourth in a series of articles highlighting ChamberFest artists
“The first time I improvised to a silent film I was frightened because I didn’t know if I could,” pianist-composer Matan Porat recalled during a Skype conversation from his home in Berlin. “And I picked the hardest movie there is, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis from 1927 — which is quite long.”
On Monday, June 20 at 8:00 pm at Dobama Theater, the Israeli-born pianist will share his improvisational skills during ChamberFest Cleveland’s “Movie Night” screening of the 1928 Buster Keaton silent film Steamboat Bill, Jr. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The third in a series of articles highlighting ChamberFest artists
Musical inspiration can be found in many forms, from the literary — revolving around stories including the profane and the divine — to the spinning of dreams. For the 2016 edition of ChamberFest Cleveland, running from June 15 through July 2, the twelve concerts presented under the theme Tales & Legends will take listeners on journeys that will explore the fantastical, the mystical, and the obsessive.
This year’s Festival programs will feature many programmatic firsts, one of which is the inclusion of vocal music — and there’s no better way to tell a story than through words set to music.
When mezzo-soprano Lauren Eberwein was forced to withdraw for health reasons, ChamberFest was fortunate to be able to secure the services of the young Canadian mezzo Marjorie Maltais. [Read more…]
by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com
For Wooster’s Ohio Light Opera, it isn’t enough simply to choose seven great examples of lyric theater to comprise a season. No, it takes months, sometimes years to pull together all the pieces of the puzzle in order to put the very best production of each show on the stage of Freedlander Theater.
Cole Porter’s 1948 masterpiece Kiss Me, Kate will open OLO’s 38th season on Saturday, June 18 at 7:30 pm. As a play within a play, it looks back to Shakespeare, of course, and to The Taming of the Shrew. But it also looks forward to more modern days, with its consideration of women’s lib — recognizing Lilli as an equal participant in the story. First seen in the 1940s, it was Porter’s love letter to the theater, not only to the actors, dancers, and musicians, but also to the audiences who came to see it. [Read more…]
by Neil McCalmont
The Oberlin Trio has been making music to widespread acclaim since its founding in 1982 by violinist Stephen Clapp, cellist Andor Toth Jr., and pianist Joseph Schwartz. Since 2008, the tradition has been carried on by another three distinguished faculty members of the Oberlin Conservatory: violinist David Bowlin, cellist Amir Eldan, and pianist Haewon Song. All are renowned pedagogues who have performed and recorded prolifically throughout their respective careers. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Most classical guitar recitals are one-player-on-the-stage affairs, so SoloDuo’s excellent recital on the evening of Saturday, June 4 in Mixon Hall at CIM was a double-your-pleasure, double-your-fun occasion. Italian guitarists Matteo Mela and Lorenzo Micheli wowed and delighted a sold-out crowd with intelligent and probing performances of arrangements of music by Domenico Scarlatti, Vincenzo Bellini, J.S. Bach, Claude Debussy, and Astor Piazzolla. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
The audience in the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall witnessed a beautiful solo classical guitar recital on Sunday afternoon, June 4 by renowned Spanish virtuoso Ricardo Gallén, as part of the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival. Gallén’s audience, an appreciative mix of professional guitarists, students, and the public, heard a program of Classical works played on a small-but-penetrating Bernhard Kresse copy of a Johann Georg Stauffer romantic guitar, and music by living composers played on a larger modern guitar by Paco Santiago Marin of Spain. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Akron Baroque marked its tenth anniversary as an ensemble with a festive performance of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks and the premiere of founder Amy Barlowe’s expressive Magnificat at Fairlawn’s Faith Lutheran Church on Sunday, June 5, led by guest conductor Marie Bucoy-Calavan. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The second in a series of articles highlighting ChamberFest artists
In October of 2015, the extraordinary accordionist and composer Merima Ključo mesmerized audiences at the Cleveland Museum of Art during the performance of her composition The Sarajevo Haggadah: Music of the Book.
On Thursday, June 16 at 8:00 pm in Mixon Hall, Ključo returns to Northeast Ohio for the first of four performances presented as part of the 2016 edition of ChamberFest Cleveland. The concert, titled “Schumann Fantasies,” will include works by Robert Schumann and György Kurtág, as well as three movements from Stephen Coxe’s A Book of Dreams for accordion, piano, and percussion. A pre-concert talk by festival speaker Patrick Castillo will begin at 7:15.
“Everywhere I go, people are surprised by what the accordion is capable of doing. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
There will be an explosion of world-class chamber music when ChamberFest Cleveland kicks off its fifth season this week. In their directors’ message, Diana and Franklin Cohen say, “With Season 5, ‘Tales & Legends,’ we are offering more concerts and special events at some very cool venues that will delight and surprise you at every turn…not to mention a spectacular cast of musicians, vocalists, actors, and composers like none to date. The pieces that comprise ‘Tales & Legends’ spin tales from the profane to the divine…and in at least one instance, the controversial. Hold onto your hats as ChamberFest Cleveland takes you on one fantastical ride!”
This is the first in a series of articles highlighting ChamberFest artists. [Read more…]