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Archives for March 2017

Oberlin Artist Recital Series:
Richard Goode to perform on April 9

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by Mike Telin

GOODE-RIchardAmerican Pianist Richard Goode is a celebrated interpreter of the music of Beethoven, and was the first American-born pianist to record all 32 sonatas (for Nonesuch in 1991). Earlier, he won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1961, took first prize in the Clara Haskil Competition in 1973, and won the Avery Fisher Prize in 1980. He recently completed a 14-year tenure as co-director (with Mitsuko Uchida) of the Marlboro Music School and Festival, the Vermont summer retreat where he spent a total of 22 summers beginning at the age of 14.

On Sunday, April 9 at 4:00 pm in Finney Chapel, Richard Goode will return to Northeast Ohio as part of the Oberlin Artist Recital Series. His program will include J.S. Bach’s Partita in e, BWV 830, Beethoven’s Sonata No. 28 in A, Op. 101 and Sonata No. 31 in A-flat, Op. 110, as well as Chopin’s Nocturne in B, Op. 62, No. 1, Polonaise in f-sharp, Op. 44 and three Mazurkas: Op. 41 No. 2 in B, No. 3 in A-flat and Op. 50 No. 3 in c-sharp. [Read more…]

Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble at Transformer Station (March 22)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Quince

There may be more vocal techniques to explore in addition to the sighs, slides, hums, whistles, heterodyning, Spanish tongue-twisters, and keening that the four women of Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble produced with larynxes, mouths, lips, and teeth on Wednesday, March 22 at Transformer Station. But selections from works by eleven composers gave an ear-opening introduction to state-of-the-art vocal chamber music, a field that’s still evolving. [Read more…]

CIPC Concert Series: pianist Marc-André Hamelin at CMA (March 21)

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by Daniel Hathaway

HamelinFor the second recital in its 2017 Concert Series, the Cleveland International Piano Competition presented Marc-André Hamelin at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Tuesday evening, March 21. The Montréal-born pianist gave outstanding performances of works by Haydn, Feinberg, Beethoven, Scriabin, and Chopin that could teach future competition contestants a lot about how to prick up the ears of juries and audiences. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: a conversation with guest conductor Harry Bicket

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by Daniel Hathaway

BicketThis week’s Cleveland Orchestra concerts will feature Baroque music by Handel, Rameau, and Purcell, led by British guest conductor Harry Bicket, who has established a distinguished operatic career at Glyndebourne, Covent Garden, The Met, and Santa Fe. Since 2007, he has served as artistic director of The English Concert, an early music ensemble founded by Trevor Pinnock, who led the group for 30 years.

Bicket’s career trajectory might have gone in quite a different direction. After posts as organ scholar of St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle and Christ Church Oxford, he was appointed sub-organist at Westminster Abbey at the age of 23. Well on his way to becoming organist at a major English cathedral, Bicket had doubts. “I thought, OK, I could stay at the Abbey for the next 40 years, considering it’s just about the best job ever,” Bicket said by telephone from his home in London, “but is that really what I want to do?”

He left Westminster Abbey without any real plan in mind. [Read more…]

CityMusic: “What’s on David Bowie’s Playlist” at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple (March 19)

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by Robert Rollin

BowieOn Sunday, May 19 at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple, CityMusic Cleveland, under the direction of Avner Dorman, performed an excellent concert that brought insight into pop icon David Bowie’s many inspirations. Bowie’s own songs, juxtaposed with Richard Strauss’s “Im Abendrot” (In the Twilight) from his Four Last Songs, were the highlight of the concert. [Read more…]

The Border Woods at CMA:
a conversation with Frode Haltli
& Emilia Amper

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By Mike Telin

Frode-Amper-et-alWhen the Osa Festival in Voss, Norway commissioned Norwegian composer and accordionist Frode Haltli to write a full concert-length work, he knew he wanted to compose a piece that would combine the improvised qualities of traditional Scandinavian folk music with classical, notated music. “From Edvard Grieg on, a lot of Norwegian composers have been interested in traditional music, and used it as a source of inspiration,” Haltli said during a telephone conversation from Norway.

On Wednesday, March 29 at 7:30 pm in Gartner Auditorium, the Cleveland Museum of Art will present Frode Haltli’s The Border Woods (Grenseskogen). The performance will feature Frode Haltli (accordion), Emilia Amper (nyckelharpa), and Eirik Raude (percussion).

“I love the sound of the nyckelharpa,” Haltli said, “and Emilia is one of the great folk musicians in Scandinavia. [Read more…]

Oxford’s New College Choir at Trinity Cathedral: a conversation with director Robert Quinney

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by Daniel Hathaway

New-College-ChoirOn Friday, March 31 at 7:30 pm, Oxford’s New College Choir will make a stop at Trinity Cathedral for a concert including both Anglican Church Music favorites and new works as part of the Choir’s six-city American tour.

The choir of boys and men dates from 1379, when William of Wykeham, the founder of Winchester College, established an educational outpost named The Warden and Scholars of St. Mary’s College of Winchester in Oxford. That title being both unwieldy and confusing (there was already a college of St. Mary in Oxford), the institution soon came to be known as New College.

New College Choir now has a relatively new director in Robert Quinney, who in 2014 replaced Edward Higginbottom after the latter’s four decades serving New College. Quinney assumed the directorship of the 30-voice ensemble after an organ scholarship at King’s College, Cambridge; an assistantship at Westminster Abbey (where he played for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton); and a brief tour of duty as organist of Peterborough Cathedral. [Read more…]

CIM New Music Symposium: fifteen minutes with George Tsontakis

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by Jeremy Reynolds

TsontakisOn Sunday, April 2 at 4:00 pm in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, CIM New Music Ensemble will present a concert including George Tsontakis’ Gravity Plus, selections from Midnight Rain, and Portraits by El Greco, as well as music by Morton Feldman and Stephen Stucky. Tsontakis will be featured in a New Music Symposium on Saturday, April 1 at 1:30 pm, in Studio 113 at CIM. Both events are free and open to the public.

Keith Fitch, head of composition and director of the New Music Ensemble at CIM, said that the school generally hosts three composers each year for guest residencies of a few days. The composers spend time working with the CIM Orchestra and New Music Ensemble, as well as holding masterclasses with the composition students. [Read more…]

Organist Jonathan Ryan plays Bach’s Clavier-Übung III at Trinity Cathedral (Mar. 21)

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by Timothy Robson

RYAN-JonathanJohann Sebastian Bach’s monumental Clavier-Übung III is arguably the greatest collection of organ works of all time. Comprised of twenty-one chorale preludes and four duets, and bookended with a prelude and fugue in E-flat major, the Clavier-Übung III is the final distillation of Baroque organ counterpoint. American organist Jonathan Ryan played Bach’s longest, most complex, and most difficult organ work Tuesday evening, March 21 on Trinity Cathedral’s 1977 Flentrop organ. [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest continues with four new music concerts this week

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by Mike Telin

ccs-yec-040614NEOSonicFest 2017 continues this week with  four concerts that celebrate the breadth of Cleveland’s new music scene.

On Wednesday, March 22 at 7:00 pm in Baldwin Wallace Conservatory’s Gamble Auditorium, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, under the direction of Steven Smith, will present its annual Young and Emerging Composers concert.

Coordinated by composer and BW faculty member Clint Needham, the Young and Emerging program has been part of CCS’s mission since its founding in 1980. In an interview with this publication, Smith told Jeremy Reynolds, “It’s rare for young composers to have the opportunity for a professional orchestra to perform their works. The seven pieces are all very different in their ideas about sound — some are more traditional, while others are more experimental.” [Read more…]

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