by Timothy Robson
György Kurtág, unlike his friend and fellow Hungarian György Ligeti, never softened his composing style. While his early works were more or less tonal, Ligeti’s style turned to modernism in the 1960s before evolving to become considerably more approachable by casual listeners. Kurtág’s severely modernist music is austerely beautiful and darkly dramatic, perhaps more to be admired than loved. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Lisa Crawford spent Wednesday’s harpsichord master class drilling down into French keyboard practice and technique. I was the first to play, and the piece was Jean-Henri D’Anglebert’s arrangement of Lully’s Ouverture to Proserpine. Here, Crawford concentrated on notes that needed emphasis or de-emphasis though articulation, an effect that could partly be accomplished by fingering.
Broadening the topic to editions of works, she said that the beautiful, digitally engraved score I and most of the class had downloaded from IMSLP — everyone’s favorite online source for free music — presented problems. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
At BPI, as elsewhere in the musical universe, master classes are the principal conduit for transferring wisdom from teachers to students. Rather than just dryly lecturing on abstract topics, distinguished musicians use performances of selected works as the springboard for discussions of matters both wide and narrow.
Harpsichord master classes on Monday with Lisa Goode Crawford, Mark Edwards, and Mitzi Meyerson offered a long list of takeaways, but also introduced BPI’s 22 harpsichordists to the unique personalities of their mentors [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
On Sunday evening, Anna Hoffmann, the indefatigable and unflappable manager of summer programs, welcomed 120-some participants to the 2017 Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute at an organizational meeting in Kulas Recital Hall.
During a roll call, faculty members sorted out details particular to their students. ‘Need to borrow a baroque bassoon? We can loan you one.’ (‘Or at least part of a bassoon,’ quipped another teacher.) And BPI director Kenneth Slowik urged students, who range in age from high school to octogenarians, to make the most of the experience by venturing out of their comfort zone to try other instruments or disciplines — an opportunity you wouldn’t be offered at most other summer music camps. [Read more…]
by Samantha Spaccasi
A hot and humid Friday night did not stop the Jupiter Quartet from putting on a stellar performance at the Gilmour Academy’s Tudor House. The group performed a “Beethoven sandwich” — two pieces by Beethoven with a delicious Ligeti work in the middle — for a fantastic opening to ENCORE Chamber Music’s second season.
The intimate setting was perfect for an evening of chamber music. Gathered in a richly decorated, wood-paneled room complete with grand portraits, the audience was transported back in time, as if we were aristocrats in a Parisian salon in the mid-1800s. [Read more…]
by Samantha Spaccasi
Itamar Zorman is enamored by chamber music. “I love the repertoire! There are so many fun works to play,” he said in a phone conversation. During the past year, the Israeli violinist played all over the world, making appearances in Dublin and Serbia. His next stop? ChamberFest Cleveland, performing this week in “Fin de Siècle,” “Hommage,” and “Youth.” See our Concert Listings for more details.
When he’s not touring, the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition winner remains busy with the Lysander Piano Trio. The group has a similar mission to ChamberFest, something that was attractive to Zorman. “The Lysanders are also working on creative repertoire and enriching our programming, not unlike what ChamberFest does,” he said. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
With the theme of Cycles: Phases, the sixth ChamberFest Cleveland opened Thursday evening, June 15, in Mixon Hall, at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The theme reflects on “the complexity of the human experience at each stage of life, and ultimately circles around all types of musical, political and emotional phases.”
The concert showed off the qualities we have come to expect from ChamberFest: brilliantly imaginative programming, with a mix of old, new, familiar, and unfamiliar works, in superior performances by (mostly young) musicians hand-picked by festival directors Franklin and Diana Cohen. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
Demarre McGill has guts.
“I enjoy challenging myself — I like to feel as hungry and energetic as I did before my first job, when I was a student,” he said in a recent conversation. “I grow from being in that particular zone. And because of that, I can do something a lot of people would question — resign from a wonderful orchestra like the Dallas Symphony to play a one-year contract with the Met.” McGill served as acting principal flute of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra this season.
“I knew that after having that experience, no matter what the result at the end of the year, I would be so much better. So leaving a great job to grow tremendously is something I would do — that I did — in a heartbeat.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Fresh off his first-prize win at the 2017 Montreal International Musical Competition in May, Hungarian pianist Zoltán Fejérvári will return to North America this week to make his ChamberFest Cleveland debut on Thursday, June 22. “I’m excited about being part of the Festival,” the pianist said by telephone from Hungary. “I know a lot of people who have been, and will be there, and they all have had wonderful things to say about it.”
In addition to his success in Montreal, Zoltán Fejérvári is the 2016 recipient of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship. He has given recitals at Carnegie’s Weill Hall, the Kimmel Center, and venues across Europe. As a concerto soloist, the pianist has performed with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Hungarian National Orchestra, and at the Verbier Festival. An active chamber musician, he participated in the Marlboro Music Festival during the summers of 2014 through 2016. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
With a mission to “give a voice to the composers of our time,” the latest addition to Northeast Ohio’s opera scene, ContempOpera/Cleveland, presented an impressive first installment of the company’s Incubator Series at Cleveland Public Theatre on Friday, June 9. The evening featured musical selections from five operas, some of them works in progress.
The evening began with two duets from Verlorene Heimat by Dawn L. Sonntag. The piece recounts the true story of East Prussian Nazi resistors and the Jewish-Ukrainian girl they sheltered during the final months of World War II. The haunting “Once I Had a Garden” was beautifully sung by sopranos Rebecca Freshwater and Andrea Anelli. Baritone Brian Keith Johnson joined Freshwater for the hopeful “I Promise I Will Find You.” Sonntag’s musical color palette is enticing, and the three singers gave heartfelt performances. [Read more…]