by Joshua Rosner
Recently declared “the hippest haunt on the Cuyahoga” by New York Magazine, the Bop Stop was abuzz for No Exit’s “Homage to Eric Dolphy.” No Exit is no stranger to inventive, new programs. But especially intriguing on Saturday night, May 27 was that this outstanding new music ensemble added to its ranks a trio of talented local jazz musicians: Bobby Selvaggio (alto saxophone), Scott McKee (trumpet/flugelhorn), and Dustin May (drum set). [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
Last Saturday evening, May 27, Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra presented an excellent and amazingly varied program at Severance Hall. Though combining Beethoven, Schoenberg, and Varèse might seem incongruous, the result made for a lively and fascinating evening. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Good Company: A Vocal Ensemble gave an immensely varied concert at Lakewood Presbyterian Church on Sunday afternoon, May 21 under its new conductor, Michael Carney, who replaces the avocational chorus’s founder, the late Karen Weaver. The entertaining program followed an unusual format: Amethyst Strings played a prelude (a movement from J.S. Bach’s Third Brandenburg Concerto), an intermission piece (Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah), and a postlude (a movement from Mozart’s Divertimento No. 1). [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The eventual six finalists in Fort Worth’s 15th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition will play concertos with Leonard Slatkin and the Fort Worth Symphony on Saturday afternoon, June 10. For the first time, the final round will be streamed live in HD to select theaters beginning at 12:55 pm. Click here to locate a local screening venue.
On Tuesday, May 30, twelve semifinalists were named — including two competitors who will be familiar to Northeast Ohio piano fans (above): Georgy Tchaidze won fourth prize in the 2016 Cleveland International Piano Competition, and Tony Yike Yang was first prize winner in Oberlin’s 2014 Thomas and Evon Cooper International Piano Competition. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Thursday evening’s Cleveland Orchestra program at Severance Hall cozied two ear-stretching modern works by Anthony Cheung and György Ligeti between a pair of Haydn Symphonies — No. 39 from the composer’s “Storm and Stress” period, and No. 96 from his late, mature period. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The popularity of ragtime peaked during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, influencing composers like Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, and Igor Stravinsky. The genre experienced a resurgence during the early 1970s with the publishing of Joshua Rifkin’s and Gunther Schuller’s compilations of music by noted ragtime composer Scott Joplin. But it was the 1973 movie The Sting, and its soundtrack featuring Joplin tunes, that thrust the genre back into popular culture. It was during that same time that American composer William Bolcom published his first set of rags. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Everyone’s favorite season of the year has had tough going in Cleveland this time around, with temperatures lurching back and forth between the high 40s and the mid 80s. But Scott MacPherson and Cleveland Chamber Choir certainly nudged nature along at Rocky River Methodist Church on Saturday evening, May 13 with their attractive program, “No Time Like Spring.” The concert was to be repeated on Sunday afternoon at First Baptist in Shaker Heights. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Beginning on Friday, June 9 and continuing through Sunday, June 11, Guitars International will present the seventeenth annual Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
“I cannot believe it’s the 17th season,” CICGF founder and artistic director Armin Kelly said during a recent telephone conversation. “Over the years I’ve learned a lot about what to do and what not to do, but it was a steep learning curve.”
Kelly noted that the Festival has grown beyond what he had ever imagined possible. “I was interested in figuring out how to fill a void in the presentation of the classical guitar in Cleveland,” Kelly said. “There were guitar programs at CIM, Oberlin, the University of Akron, and other schools in the area, but there really wasn’t an established concert presenter for the instrument.” [Read more…]
Nonprofit arts and culture organizations and nonprofit organizations that present arts and cultural programs in Cuyahoga County are encouraged to apply for 2018-19 General Operating Support and 2018 Project Support from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
“I always tell my students that performing on different instruments during the same recital is a bad idea,” Oberlin Baroque flute professor Michael Lynn said in a recent lunch interview. Casting aside his own advice, Lynn will host “A Passion for Innovation: A Lecture/Concert on Ten Rare Flutes, 1770-1900” on May 20 at 11:00 am in Kulas Recital Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory. With the assistance of several Oberlin colleagues, he’ll demonstrate just a few of the sixty flutes in his personal collection using period repertoire specially matched to the instruments.
The idea came to him when he acquired a crystal flute made by Claude Laurent in Paris in 1821. Among the most expensive flutes on the market at that time, these instruments were priced well out of the reach of mere musicians and were frequently given as gifts by the wealthy (among their owners were James Madison and Napoleon Bonaparte). Some 120 of these flutes still exist.