by Daniel Hathaway
Musical chameleon that it can be, The Cleveland Orchestra put itself completely in the hands of Montréal-based early music specialist Bernard Labadie and German violinist Isabelle Faust on Thursday evening, February 15, producing fresh and insightful versions of standard works by Mendelssohn and Mozart, and a tantalizing taste of the work of a little-known Parisian composer of the Classical era. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Anticipating Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Carnival, or however you refer to the blowout before the beginning of Lent, the Akron Symphony joined forces with Neos Dance Theater on Friday, February 8 in E.J. Thomas Hall to produce its latest community extravaganza: a fully choreographed performance of the ballet score to Stravinksy’s Petrushka. Set during a Shrovetide fair, it’s a tragic tale acted out by puppets, but revelry was also in the air: at the end, the stage was filled with balloons that the cast were happy to share with the audience.
by Jarrett Hoffman
How do you describe the experience of hearing Michael Gordon’s Timber, the hour-long percussion sextet played on amplified slabs of wood? One word might be ‘transcendental.’
“Most times that we play this piece,” said Michael McCurdy, co-founder and artistic director of Mantra Percussion, “more than one person from the audience comes up afterwards and says, ‘It seemed like 20 or 30 minutes — I can’t believe that was an hour.’ People transcend their sense of time and place as they’re experiencing it.”
Mantra Percussion — who co-commissioned Timber and delivered its U.S. premiere in 2011 — will bring the piece to Transformer Station this Friday, February 23 at 7:30 pm, as part of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series. Click here to watch the ensemble perform the piece.
by Mike Telin
“The members of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus are some of the best kids in their high school choral programs,” COYC acting director Daniel Singer said during a recent conversation. “When they come into this group they tear into learning new repertoire and tackle a professional masterwork like the Te Deum that is not dumbed down for kids in any way. They thrive on that challenge.”
On Sunday, February 25 at 7:00 pm in Severance Hall, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and Youth Chorus will come together for performances of Dvořák’s Te Deum featuring soprano Marian Vogel and baritone Brian Keith Johnson, and Hanson’s Song of Democracy. The concert, under the direction of Vinay Parameswaran, will also include Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1. Tickets are available online.
Singer, who is in his seventh year as Director of Music at University School, said that somehow, Dvořák’s Te Deum has stayed off his musical radar. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
There is a lot that’s unique about the guitar duo of Randall Avers and Benoît Albert, including their background and repertoire — and of course, their name: Les Frères Méduses. When I asked Avers — an Ohio native and Oberlin alum with connections to the University of Akron — to explain The Jellyfish Brothers, he called over to his duo partner for help telling the story. “Ben!”
Albert picked up another phone at Avers’ parents’ house in Massillon, where the two guitarists were staying before heading out for performances in Kentucky and Ohio. That tour includes a concert this Saturday, February 24 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights on the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s International Series. There they’ll bring together Balkan folk music, classical music, two works of their own, and a free improvisation.
I asked again. Why The Jellyfish Brothers? “Oh,” Albert said, laughing. “It’s a long story.”
It begins in 2008 at the Akron Zoo — at a jellyfish exhibit.
by Robert Rollin
Last Saturday evening February 10, conductor Randall Craig Fleischer and the Youngstown Symphony hosted three talented vocalists for an Ella Fitzgerald hundredth birthday tribute concert. The gifted vocalists, Carpathia Jenkins, Harolyn Blackwell, and Aisha de Haas were exceptional. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Early and late Mozart piano concertos were featured on the program when pianist Mitsuko Uchida paid her annual visit to The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall last Thursday, February 8. In between, concertmaster William Preucil captained the Orchestra on a virtual musical barge trip down the Thames via festive selections from Handel’s Water Music. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, CIM faculty cellist Melissa Kraut joined her sister, clarinetist Rena Kraut, in Mixon Hall to share a family album of photos, remembrances, and music chronicling the journey of their forebears from Rzeszów in Nazi-occupied Poland to Palestine and Israel, and finally to the United States. Assisted by faculty pianist Anita Pontremoli, the Kraut sisters presented a moving timeline titled “From the Shtetl to the Concert Stage: The Thread that Sustained Music through the Holocaust” (Shtetl is Yiddish for “village.”) [Read more…]
by David Kulma
The Apollo’s Fire concert on Friday, February 9 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, “Three Duels and a Wedding” — with a surprise — highlighted three double concertos and the well-known Wedding Cantata by J.S. Bach. First, about the duels. The concert opened with Georg Philipp Telemann’s Concerto in e for flute and violin. Flutist Kathie Stewart’s pearly tone and concertmaster Olivier Brault’s joie de vivre were excellently complemented by harpsichordist/conductor Jeannette Sorrell and the ensemble. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The weather may have been frigid on Friday evening, February 2, but the capacity audience that gathered inside John Knox Presbyterian Church in North Olmsted was warmed by the mellifluous playing of the excellent classical guitarist Jason Vieaux. The concert was presented as part of the church’s Performance Series.