by Daniel Hathaway
For its annual plunge into the non-Baroque, Apollo’s Fire took its early summer audiences on a cultural excursion around the Mediterranean, a journey resembling the travels of Ziryab, a 9th-century African troubadour who was the Johann Gottlieb Goldberg of his era, the favorite oud player for the insomniac kalif of Baghdad.
Ziryab’s musical skills launched his wanderings — he was kicked out of the palace by its jealous regular minstrel — as well as inspiring co-curators Amanda Powell and Brian Kay to gather fifteen songs and dances from Medieval and Renaissance Spain, Cyprus, Italy, and Greece into an engaging program. [Read more…]
From the time she was able to speak, Lauren Eberwein sang. “I was the kid in the corner singing her thoughts to herself, or dancing around the playground writing my own musicals in my head, narrating my life through song,” the mezzo-soprano said in an email. Eberwein will be featured in Kurt Weill songs in the first of her three ChamberFest Cleveland programs tonight, June 16, at 6:30 and 8:30 at the Bop Stop.
