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Archives for July 2018

Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute: faculty perform Couperin & Charpentier (June 30)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Even with a Baroque organ case looming over its stage, the utilitarian design of Oberlin’s Warner Concert Hall has nothing in common with the overwrought exuberance of the Palace of Versailles. But if you closed your eyes last Friday evening, June 30, and let your ears take over, the faculty of the Baroque Performance Institute — plus some advanced students and choral scholars — successfully transported you back three centuries to the court of Louis XIV (aka the Sun King) in extended works by François Couperin and Marc-Antoine Charpentier. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Behind Bars” at Reinberger (June 29)

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by Timothy Robson

In the penultimate concert of their 2018 season, ChamberFest Cleveland offered the program “Behind Bars” on Friday, June 29 in Reinberger Chamber Music Hall at Severance Hall. The title was a reference to twentieth-century composer, organist and teacher Olivier Messiaen, who was being held in a German POW camp in 1940 when he composed his Quartet for the End of Time. That work received a searingly intense performance on the second half of the program, rendering the music that preceded it almost trivial by comparison. [Read more…]

Milt Hinton Institute for Studio Bass:
July 7 through 13 in Oberlin

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by Mike Telin

For seven decades, bassist Milt Hinton played with the most influential artists in American music. While doing so, Hinton chronicled his experiences through the lens of his ever-present camera. This week the Oberlin Conservatory will celebrate its ties to the late performer with the Milt Hinton Institute for Studio Bass, a biennial summer program for developing musicians that takes place this year the Oberlin campus from July 7 through July 13.

Designed for bass students ages 13-21 of all ability levels, the Institute consists of a week of master classes, performances, bass ensembles, studio sessions, lectures, and workshops. It focuses on a comprehensive range of genres: classical, early music, jazz, slap, Latin, and electric. Directed by Oberlin Professor of Jazz Studies and Double Bass Peter Dominguez, the Institute will feature the nation’s finest teachers and performers across a variety of styles.

The Institute is part of an ongoing relationship between Oberlin and the Hinton estate to ensure that the legacy of “The Dean of Jazz bassists” will be kept alive well into the future. [Read more…]

Pianist Spencer Myer and the Miami String Quartet to combine once again at Kent Blossom

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by Jarrett Hoffman

“Although Myer isn’t an official member,” ClevelandClassical.com wrote last year, “his performance…made it sound as if he were a bona fide Miami.”

Pianist Spencer Myer will continue his long-standing collaboration with the Miami String Quartet on Wednesday, July 11 at 7:30 pm in Ludwig Recital Hall at Kent State — the second faculty concert of this year’s Kent/Blossom Music Festival. The program includes Haydn’s String Quartet in d, Op. 76, No. 2, Pēteris Vasks’ 1995 String Quartet No. 3, and Dvořák’s Op. 5 Quintet for Piano and Strings in A.

Last week I caught up with Myer by phone, and began our conversation by asking about his busy June.

[Read more…]

Blossom Music Center: starting to build a summer home for The Cleveland Orchestra
(first of three articles)

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by Alice Koeninger

As you may remember, two summers ago The Cleveland Orchestra helped to celebrate the centennial of the National Parks Service at the Blossom Music Center. Now it is time for Blossom to celebrate its own milestone: its 50th anniversary.

At Blossom’s conception, The Cleveland Orchestra was the only “Big Five” orchestra in the country that did not offer full-time positions to its musicians, mainly due to the fact that it did not have a summer home. In 1965, it became musical director George Szell’s mission to build such a residence, and the Musical Arts Association was finally listening.

Soon, Frank E. Joseph, Szell’s friend and board president, along with Beverly Barksdale, the Orchestra’s general manager, began looking at possible sites for that outdoor venue. 

[Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera to present Bernstein’s Candide

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by Jarrett Hoffman

With July 4th a day away, it’s as good a time as any for this conversation-starter: aside from The Star-Spangled Banner and America the Beautiful, what music do you most associate with the US of A? It may be the marches of  J.P. Sousa, or it could be a particular song by the Violent Femmes (“Do you liiiike American music?”). And it very well might be the works of a certain native-born composer that have graced more than a few programs this year.

The day after the United States turn 242, Ohio Light Opera will celebrate two more birthdays — the company’s 40th and Leonard Bernstein’s 100th — when they present that composer’s 1956 comic operetta Candide. Performances begin on July 5 at 2:00 pm in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster and continue through August 10. (See their calendar for details.)

Directed by Steven A. Daigle and conducted by Steven Byess, the production also marks OLO’s first-ever performance of any Bernstein work. Ted Christopher, Alexa Devlin, Stephen Faulk, Benjamin Krumreig, Hannah Kurth, Daniel Neer, Sarah Polinski, and Stephen Walley will take on a cast of characters who are repeatedly killed, only to bizarrely turn up again in far-off locales and ever-stranger situations.

[Read more…]

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