by Daniel Hathaway
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center launched a seven-city tour of Piano Quartets with its January 17 concert at Plymouth Church for the Cleveland Chamber Music Society. Large-scale, early works by Gabriel Fauré and Johannes Brahms received masterful performances from pianist Alessio Bax, violinist Ani Kavafian, violist Yura Lee, and cellist Paul Watkins. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“Philip Glass is turning 80 on the 31st of this month, and I thought that was certainly cause for tipping the cap to one of the most famous composers of our time,” said Tom Welsh, Cleveland Museum of Art’s Director of Performing Arts, during a recent telephone conversation. “As a composer, Glass had a real impact on the whole world — not just in classical music, but everything — and I thought that was worth recognizing.”
Beginning on Friday, January 27 and continuing through Sunday, CMA and the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque will celebrate Glass’s 80th birthday with a presentation of The Qatsi Trilogy: Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi by filmmaker Godfrey Reggio with landmark musical scores by Glass. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Karel Paukert has made his mark on Cleveland’s classical music life as Curator of Musical Arts at the Cleveland Museum of Art, a post he held from 1974-2004, and as organist and choirmaster of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, a position he inherited in 1979 and in which he continues to serve nearly 40 years later. (Photo: Paukert with Olivier Messiaen at CMA in 1978.)
Paukert will be honored by the Cleveland Chapter of the American Guild of Organists at St. Paul’s on Sunday, January 29 at 4:00 pm. “Karel Paukert Up Close and Personal” will include an interview and Q&A period led by Timothy Robson, and the world premiere of Labyrinths by Kent State University composition professor Frank Wiley. A reception will follow the event. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Now celebrating its tenth anniversary, the Boston-based chamber orchestra A Far Cry will journey to Berea this week to conduct a residency and play a concert at Baldwin Wallace University.
The ensemble of string players, who perform without conductor, share all aspects of decision-making among the membership, a process the orchestra will discuss with BW students and faculty during its sojourn later this week.
The musical results of their approach to self-governance will be on display in a 7:00 pm concert on Tuesday, January 24 in Gamble Auditorium. The program will include J.S. Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, Lembit Beecher’s The Conference of the Birds, Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa, and selections from the medieval Codex Calixtinus. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
In today’s classical music world, there are many ways to define the term “modern music,” with all its cross-pollinations of styles and genres,” Imani Winds bassoonist Monica Ellis said during a recent telephone interview. “I think this program has an overriding commonality of modernism, yet that is expressed in so many different ways.”
On Wednesday, January 25 at 7:30 pm, the Imani Winds — Valerie Coleman, flute, Toyin Spellman-Diaz, oboe, Mark Dover, clarinet, Jeff Scott, horn, and Monica Ellis, bassoon — will return to the Tuesday Musical series in Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall for a concert titled “Considered Modern.” The program will feature works by Elliott Carter, Paquito D’Rivera, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Simon Shaheen, and Imani’s own Valerie Coleman and Jeff Scott. This writer will conduct a pre-concert interview with members of the ensemble beginning at 6:30 pm.
“The program also embodies who we are as an ensemble, and the mission we established when the group was formed 20 years ago,” Ellis said. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
When composer Philip Glass released his Songs from Liquid Days in 1986, the groundbreaking album featuring lyrics by Paul Simon, Suzanne Vega, David Byrne, and Laurie Anderson quickly became Glass’s most successful album to date. Writing for The New York Times, critic Stephen Holden noted: “The album’s six songs are short, oracular reflections on time and love, with imagery that explicitly evokes mystical connections between people and objects, the living and the dead, and portrays dreams as portholes into eternity.”
This weekend those portholes into eternity will be reimagined by Jonathon Field when Oberlin Opera Theater presents Glass’s Songs From Liquid Days as part of Cleveland Opera Theater’s {NOW} Festival. Performances will take place on January 27 and 28 in Oberlin’s Warner Concert Hall, and on January 29 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. (Seating is limited for the Oberlin performances. Ticketing information for all events is below.) [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The presentation of new and recently composed operas has been part of Cleveland Opera Theater’s mission since it was founded in 2006. Beginning on Friday, January 20, the company will launch its first festival dedicated to new opera works.
Scott Skiba, executive artistic director of COT, said that this year’s {New Opera Works} Festival features works that are in the beginning, middle, and ending stages of development. “Federico García Lorca’s final play, The House of Bernarda Alba, is in the initial stages of being adapted into an opera, and there will be a reading of the English translation by Lorca scholar Caridad Svich,” Skiba said during a recent interview.
Representing the middle period of development will be a preview of Scene Three from composer Nkeiru Okoye’s and librettist David Cote’s new opera We’ve Got Our Eye on You. “This will be a teaser of the complete opera, which will be presented during next year’s {NOW} Festival,” Skiba said. A recently completed work at the Festival will be Amelia Lost, a new opera by Larry Delinger and Brad Carroll which had its world premiere in Knoxville back in 2014 (pictured above). [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Mozart made an excellent impression visiting Paris with his father and sister in the mid-1760s. However, when he returned to the city in the spring of 1778, things didn’t go so well. “Despite the successful premiere of his Paris Symphony, and a few other commissions, he felt misunderstood,” oboist Debra Nagy said during a recent conversation. “But it was his bad attitude that was ultimately his undoing.”
On Saturday, January 21 at 8:00 pm at 2731 Prospect Gallery, Les Délices will present “Mozart in Paris.” The program, which marks the ensemble’s first full concert featuring music from the Classical era, will include Mozart’s Quartet for Oboe and Strings, quintets by Luigi Boccherini and Christoph Willibald Gluck, a string quartet by Giuseppe Cambini, and an etude by renowned French cellist Jean-Louis Duport. The program will be repeated on Sunday, January at 4:00 pm at Herr Chapel in Plymouth Church. In addition to Nagy, performers include violinists Julie Andrijeski and Beth Wenstrom, violist Cynthia Black, and cellist Elinor Frey. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
On her debut album Carve, bassoonist Dana Jessen challenges listeners to discard any preconceived notions they may have about the instrument, and allow themselves to be swept away into a magical world of colorful acoustic and electronic soundscapes. Released on Innova Recordings, Carve features four alluring commissioned works by American composers — Paula Matthusen, Sam Pluta, Peter V. Swendsen, and Kyle Bruckmann — interwoven with playful improvisations by Jessen. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Zeitgeist, the new music ensemble from St. Paul, Minnesota, hosted their Cleveland colleagues, No Exit, in concerts in the Twin Cities last fall. No Exit returned the favor last weekend, joining Zeitgeist for three concerts at the Happy Dog Euclid Tavern, Heights Arts, and SPACES. We caught some of the pieces on their joint playlist at SPACES’ new location in Hingetown on Sunday, January 15, where the musicians presented several sets between noon and 5:00 pm. [Read more…]