by Robert Rollin
Last Saturday night February 24, Les Frères Méduses (The Jellyfish Brothers) completed their Cleveland residency with a concert at Shaker Heights’ Plymouth Church focusing on 21st Century music for two guitars. The Duo, Frenchman Benoit Albert and Ohio native Randall Avers, featured their own improvisations, which were tossed off with flair and impeccable ensemble. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
Those who have never heard a concert by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and their sibling organization, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus, have been deprived of a very fine musical experience. Their recent concert at Severance Hall on Sunday, February 25, under their youthful new music director, Vinay Parameswaran, was again proof of the fine training that these young musicians receive from their own teachers as well as from their Cleveland Orchestra coaches. If anything, this concert improved upon past performances. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
“Do not put Mozart into a box!” The plea, issued by Omni Quartet cellist Tanya Ell at the Heights Arts Close Encounters concert last weekend, could apply equally to the ensemble itself. In the barn of the Dunham Tavern Museum, the quartet demonstrated both range and focus, showing off the group’s unique sound in works by Mozart and expanding its ranks to play a sextet by Brahms. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
Is there any feat of performance greater than transfixing and moving an audience while remaining warm, welcoming, humble, and human? In a concert last week in Oberlin College and Conservatory’s Fairchild Chapel, the Flanders Recorder Quartet — performing in Northeast Ohio for the final time, as part of their 30th anniversary and farewell tour — offered a perfect blend of profundity, virtuosity, and tasteful tomfoolery as a parting gift to area audiences.
by Mike Telin
Those who were lucky enough to have a ticket to the Mantra Percussion concert on Friday, February 23 at Transformer Station were treated to a spectacular sonic feast for the ears.
The evening consisted of a single work, Michael Gordon’s hour-long Timber, scored for six instruments known as simantras — 2×4’s mounted on metal frames and struck with mallets and fingers. Rooted in the Eastern Orthodox liturgical tradition, the instruments were first introduced into classical music by composer Iannis Xenakis. The concert was presented as part of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series.
by Jarrett Hoffman
A return to a concerto that brought with it a solo debut. The celebration of a long chamber music partnership and friendship. And one final concerto in a 22-year orchestral tenure.
Those landmarks in the careers of three clarinetists — Randy Klein, Richard Hawkins, and Allan Ware — can be heard across two days, March 3 and 5, in Canton, Oberlin, and Rocky River. On the docket are concertos by John Corigliano and Aaron Copland, and clarinet quintets by Carl Maria von Weber and Johannes Brahms.
The clarinet show begins on Saturday, March 3 at 7:30 pm in Umstattd Hall. Randy Klein will join his Canton Symphony colleagues and music director Gerhardt Zimmermann for the Copland Concerto, in between performances of Stephen Montague’s Snakebite and Mozart’s Symphony No. 40.
“This is my last season in Canton,” Klein said in a recent conversation. “I’m retiring from the orchestra.”
by Daniel Hathaway
Contrapunctus Early Music, an endeavor launched by British countertenor David Acres, has been absent from the Cleveland musical scene for a couple of years. The high-voice chorus of sopranos, altos, and countertenors is back again to sing a concert of music dedicated to the Virgin Mary on Friday, March 2 at 7:30 pm at St. John’s Cathedral in downtown Cleveland.
In the interim, Acres and his wife Judith have been busy on another project in South Carolina. “We have been concentrating on our choir in Charleston, The King’s Counterpoint, and we have enjoyed a wonderful 24 months,” Acres wrote in a recent email.
“A series of Baroque Messiahs and the inaugural concert in our exploration of Handel’s Oratorios, commencing with Judas Maccabaeus — both with members of the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra; a critically acclaimed performance in last year’s Piccolo Spoleto Series and an invite to return this year; together with over 16 performances in South Carolina, have stopped us from returning to Cleveland to explore more high-voice repertoire with Contrapunctus.”
by Mike Telin
The first volume of children’s tales published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812 includes some of today’s most beloved stories, such as Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, and Rumpelstiltskin. Also in that volume is the tale of Hansel and Gretel, two children who cleverly outwit a witch. This week, Engelbert Humperdinck’s adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale returns to the Kulas Hall stage at the Cleveland Institute of Music in four performances by CIM Opera Theatre. David Bamberger directs and Harry Davidson conducts the CIM Orchestra.
The opera will be sung in German with English supertitles, and has a runtime of 2 hours and 30 minutes including intermission. Evening performances will be held February 28 through March 2 at 7:30 pm with a special family performance on Saturday, March 3 at 3:00 pm. Click here for an illustrated synopsis of the opera, compliments of the Metropolitan Opera. Tickets are available online. Before each production, non-perishable food items will be collected at the Kulas Hall entrance from patrons interested in donating to the Greater Cleveland Food Bank.
I spoke with mezzo-soprano Meg Linebaugh and soprano Anne Carruthers, who will sing the roles of Hansel and Gretel respectively during the Thursday and Saturday performances. I began the conversation by asking each of them about their character and their relationship with their sibling. [Read more…]
The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra announces auditions for its 2018-19 season. Highlights of the upcoming 33rd season include three performances at Severance Hall, as well as concerts in the greater Cleveland community under the direction of Music Director Vinay Parameswaran. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Though he has lamentably gone on to that great podium in the sky, the spirit of Pierre Boulez hovered over Thursday evening’s all-Ravel concert by the Cleveland Orchestra in Severance Hall. Conductor Matthias Pintscher drew exacting, intelligent, glorious performances from the Orchestra and Chorus. And pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet triumphed in one of Ravel’s most demanding pieces — with one hand tied behind his back. [Read more…]