by Mike Telin
While Sergei Prokofiev’s third piano concerto receives more than its fair share of visits to the concert stage, and even his first concerto makes appearances from time to time, what about the composer’s second concerto — why does it languish in obscurity?
On Saturday, January 20 at E.J. Thomas Hall, guest conductor Daniel Hege led the first-rate Akron Symphony in a riveting performance of Prokofiev’s visceral Piano Concerto No. 2 in g, with the brilliant Gabriela Martinez as soloist. The young Venezuelan pianist was effortless in her handling of the 30-minute concerto’s technically challenging writing. But it was her instinctive music-making that made for a thrilling listening experience.
In an age when the word “opera,” to most, means the historical canon — that body of works that recirculate through the world’s houses each year — it bears repeating as often as possible that new efforts in the genre have flourished of late. Thanks to the combined efforts of the Cleveland Opera Theater, the Maltz Performing Arts Center at the Temple-Tifereth Israel, the Cleveland Composers’ Guild, and the Baldwin Wallace and Oberlin Conservatories of Music, Northeast Ohio audiences recently had a chance to hear scenes from three new works-in-progress by area composers and librettists.
For his New Music Ensemble’s biannual concerts, director Keith Fitch often builds programs around guest composers coming to the Cleveland Institute of Music. This year, the addition of a concert in February — one without a visiting artist — gives Clevelanders a further opportunity to hear new music, and provided Fitch extra programmatic flexibility.
It’s hard to say what’s most interesting about the new opera 
