by Nicholas Stevens
The sun is shining, the leaves regenerating — and something wonderfully alive is stirring in Severance Hall. The Cleveland Orchestra billed its programs on April 12 and 13 as “sneak previews” of the concert cycles that close its 100th season: windows into the ensemble’s preparations for The Ecstasy of Tristan and Isolde and The Prometheus Project. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
The Syndicate for the New Arts kicked off their new Transmitter series at Historic St. John’s on Tuesday night, April 10. Focusing on a collaboration among experimental noise musicians and video and performance artists, this first night had the Parish Hall both visually and aurally glowing. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
Apollo’s Fire’s L’Orfeo is, in short, spell-binding. You should drop everything and go to their final local performance in Bay Village on Wednesday, April 18. If you’re not yet convinced, please keep reading. Two things stand out about this glorious semi-staged performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s “Favola di musica” in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music on April 13. First is the magnificent production and performance. Second is the special music crafted by Apollo’s Fire principal cello René Schiffer to restore the original 1607 Bacchanale ending. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
During his celebrated career, Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley has sung all the major baritone roles from Mozart to Mark Anthony Turnage. His orchestral and recital appearances have taken him to concert stages throughout the world. In 2014 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2017. And, in August of 2014 he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.
One thing Finley has not done is to perform in Northeast Ohio — that is until now. “The Cleveland Orchestra has been persistent about trying to find a time for us to work together, and it’s just never worked out.” Finley said during a telephone conversation from London. “Franz (Welser-Möst) is a close colleague since my time in Vienna and Salzburg, so I am absolutely thrilled to come to the area.”
On Tuesday, April 17 8:00 pm in Finney Chapel, the Oberlin Artist Recital Series will present Gerald Finley and pianist Michael McMahon, in a program that will include Goethe Lieder by Beethoven and Schubert and Romances by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Admirers of Thomas Forrest Kelly’s 2000 book First Nights: Five Musical Premieres probably wish they could have been physically present to witness the very first performances of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, and Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps.
Me? I wish I had been able to attend the rehearsals — which often prove as interesting as the performances themselves. Rehearsals are where artistic philosophies get established, deals are made between directors and performers, and kinks get worked out. When the piece in question is a staged work, the rehearsal process becomes more complex: the ideas (and egos) of more than one director need to be melded into a single product, and there’s much more that can go awry.
Apollo’s Fire will produce three semi-staged performances of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo in the next week: two in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music on Friday and Saturday, April 13 and 14 at 7:30 pm, and one at St. Raphael Church in Bay Village on Wednesday, April 18 at 7:30 pm. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
When Edgar Moreau was four years old he saw a girl playing the cello in an antique shop he was visiting with his father. “That was a long time ago even for me,” the 24-year-old said by telephone from Gainesville, Florida, where he had been performing.
“But I do remember the feeling — It was physical. I heard the sound and saw the cello, and the little girl who was playing it had her legs and arms wrapped around it. I said to my father that I need to play this instrument. I didn’t know that name of it, I just knew that it was important for me to play it. Since that moment I fell in love with the cello, and every day I spend with the instrument is wonderful.”
On Tuesday, April 17 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church, Shaker Heights, the Parisian-born cellist will make his Cleveland Chamber Music Society and Cleveland debut, joined by pianist Jessica Osborne. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
Concerts by CIM’s New Music Ensemble have such startlingly high levels of performance that it’s hard to remember that the musicians are, in fact, students. In their concert on Saturday night, April 7 at the Bop Stop as a part of this year’s NEOSonicFest, the ensemble gave immaculate performances of works selected from their 2017-2018 repertoire. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
This year’s NEOSonicFest — the new music festival presented by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony — held its second concert on Friday, April 6th with a program by the venturesome ensemble No Exit at Heights Arts. The musicians of No Exit and two guest trumpeters were in top form for this potpourri of chamber music. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Michigan-based cellist Deborah Pae was the featured soloist with David Ellis’ Earth and Air: String Orchestra at a concert in the nave of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights on Friday evening, April 6. The main piece of business that brought her to Cleveland was a performance of Jeffrey Mumford’s two rhapsodies for cello and strings, but she was front and center in Tchaikovsky’s Andante Cantabile as well.
by Nicholas Stevens
Éliane Radigue creates works that often suit the gallery better than the concert hall. Best known for drone compositions of almost cosmic proportions — OMNHT, her current installation at MOCA Cleveland, runs for several decades before looping — her works tend to defy conventional notions of performance. But last week, Northeast Ohio concertgoers took in a rare experience: hearing some of Radigue’s recent acoustic works for live performers, while seated inside the installation.