by Daniel Hathaway
Organist Christopher Houlihan’s two previous recordings were devoted to music by Maurice Duruflé, Jehan Alain and Louis Vierne — three go-to composers for demonstrating the talents of a young organ virtuoso. His most recent release on Cleveland’s Azica label takes on more dangerous interpretive material: some of the more monumental works of Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as Houlihan’s own arrangement of Bach’s Concerto in the Italian Style. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The Jerusalem Quartet are regulars on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series. On Tuesday, March 21 at 7:30 pm, violinists Alexander Pavlovsky and Sergei Bresler, violist Ori Kam, and cellist Kyril Zlotnikov will return for their fourth visit in eight years to perform music by Haydn, Prokofiev, and Dvořák at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. WCLV’s Mark Satola will give a pre-concert lecture at 6:30 pm.
Though the quartet was unavailable for a telephone interview, violist Ori Kam kindly agreed to respond to questions by email. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Founded in 2005 in Columbus, Ohio, the Carpe Diem String Quartet is a shining example of a 21st-century chamber ensemble. Known for its eclectic programming, diverse outreach activities, and forward-thinking definition of “classical” music, Carpe Diem is true to its name, seizing every opportunity no matter what obstacles stand in the way.
On Monday, March 20 at 7:30 pm at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, Carpe Diem String Quartet will return to Cleveland for a performance on the Rocky River Chamber Music Society series. The program will include music by Schubert, Taneyev, and the quartet’s own Korine Fujiwara. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
How does a man born in Britain, raised in East Africa, and trained on the French horn come to play an instrument developed by the Aboriginal people of Northern Australia? “I was inspired to play the didjeridu while working as music director for Circus Oz in Australia in the early 1980s,” Stephen Kent said during a recent telephone conversation.
On Saturday, March 18 at 7:00 pm at the Akron Art Museum, Tuesday Musical will present Stephen Kent and the San Francisco-based Del Sol String Quartet as part of the FUZE! Series. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
This week’s pair of Cleveland Orchestra concerts led by music director Franz Welser-Möst will be devoted to works in a variety of styles by Igor Stravinsky. One of the most challenging is Threni: Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah, a piece the composer premiered at the Venice Biennale in September 1958. Threni will be performed on Thursday, March 16 and Saturday, March 18 by The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus and the Miami-based chamber chorus Seraphic Fire, now in its fifteenth season.
We spoke by telephone last week with Seraphic Fire’s founder and artistic director Patrick Dupré Quigley, who was already in Cleveland on another assignment with the Cleveland Orchestra. [Read more…]
by Jeremy Reynolds
For the past three years, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony has sponsored NEOSonicFest, a new music festival that spotlights musicians and groups in Northeast Ohio. The festival begins on Friday, March 17 and runs through Sunday, March 26 (see below for concert dates and times).
“There’s always been an incredibly active new music scene in Cleveland,” said Steven Smith, music director of the Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony. “Cleveland is unique in terms of the high level of its artistic institutions for a city of its size, and it’s been that way for a very long time.” New to the 2017 roster are the ensembles No Exit, the percussion and saxophone duo Patchwork, and harpist Stephan Haluska. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
The Cleveland Orchestra Family Concert on Sunday afternoon, March 5 was a delight. The program, titled “The Magic Firebird,” was a collaboration between the Orchestra and the Enchantment Theatre Company. Guest conductor Ruth Reinhardt led Stravinsky’s The Firebird with precision, commenting briefly on each piece and drawing in the young audience. The concert was a terrific success despite limited space onstage. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Les Délices’ normal métier is French Baroque music, but last weekend the ensemble turned to earlier French music, joining forces with Boston’s Blue Heron to produce a condensed version of Guillaume de Machaut’s Remède de Fortune. Their performance of this dit, or long narrative poem, by the 14th-century superstar attracted a good-sized audience to Historic St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ohio City on Saturday evening. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Whether you know her as Cendrillon, Aschenbrödel, La Cenerentola, La Cenicienta, Soluschka, or, most likely, Cinderella, the story of that downtrodden stepchild is an irresistible fairy tale. It’s been turned into many operas, but perhaps most magically by Jules Massenet in his Cendrillon, beautifully produced by Oberlin Opera Theater last Wednesday evening at its opening performance in Hall Auditorium. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
When David Robert Jones, a.k.a. David Bowie, passed away in January of 2016, the English singer, songwriter, actor, and popular-culture icon left the world with a prodigious artistic canon. With a career dating back to 1962, Bowie was constantly reinventing himself. That raises the question — what and who were his artistic inspirations?
In the first of five concerts, beginning on Wednesday, March 15 at 7:30 at St. Jerome Church in Cleveland, audiences will be able to discover some answers to that question when Avner Dorman leads CityMusic Cleveland in “What’s on David Bowie’s Playlist?” [Read more…]