by Daniel Hathaway
Haydn and Tchaikovsky symphonies bracketed an important new organ concerto at Severance Hall from March 14-17, creating a hodgepodge of a program, but demonstrating the stylistic flexibility of Franz Welser-Most and The Cleveland Orchestra, as well as the breathtaking technique and musicality of organist Paul Jacobs. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
Depending on how presenters and performers discuss it in concerts, music history can be a portal to deeper understanding or a padlock. Especially hazardous is the tracing of artistic lineage. If you talk engagingly about teacher-to-student “family trees,” the concert may gain in vitality and direction. If you list them dryly, you risk making textbook fodder of vibrant art.
by Jarrett Hoffman
German violinist Carolin Widmann rarely performs in the U.S. — and we Americans might be feeling a tad neglected.
To smooth things over, the winner of the 2017 Bayerischer Staatspreis für Musik will bring a solo program of Medieval, Baroque, and contemporary music to Transformer Station on Friday, March 29 at 7:30 pm as part of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series. Get tickets here.
I caught her on the phone in Leipzig, where she was happy to be home for a day between performances in Italy and Frankfurt. I began by asking her if there’s a reason she doesn’t perform in America more often?
by Jarrett Hoffman
When a festival runs for long enough, it becomes interesting to look back and remember that it wasn’t always a staple of the local culture. At one time, it was entirely new.
“Last weekend,” Daniel Hathaway wrote in April of 2014, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony “burst suddenly into bloom like a crocus after a long winter with the first of two concerts anchoring its promising new enterprise, NEOSonicFest…”
Back then, music director Steven Smith had been thinking for years about how to keep the name and activities of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony alive, as Mike Telin reported in our very first preview of NEOSonicFest. The retirement of the orchestra’s founder, Edwin London, and the end of its residency at Cleveland State University had slowed the group’s momentum.
by Daniel Hathaway and Mike Telin
Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress is based on a series of 18th-century engravings of the same name by William Hogarth and boasts a libretto by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman. The opera chronicles the moral and physical demise of Tom Rakewell, who deserts Anne Trulove for London’s decadent delights. After many adventures initiated by Nick Shadow, a.k.a. the Devil, Tom ends up in a hospital for the insane. The moral of the story: the Devil will find work for idle hands. Click here to read a short synopsis.
On Thursday, March 21 at 7:30 pm at the Klais Drama Center, Baldwin Wallace Opera Theater takes on this entertaining tale of Tom and his pact with the Devil. The double cast includes Ethan Burck and Benjamin Krumreig as Tom Rakewell, faculty members Benjamin Czarnota and Marc Weagraff as Nick Shadow, DeLaine Crutchfield and Giuliana Bozza as Anne Trulove, and Nan Golz and Sarah Antell as Baba the Turk. Scott Skiba directs and Domenico Boyagian conducts the Baldwin Wallace Orchestra. Performances continue on March 22 and 23 at 7:30 pm and March 24 at 2:00 pm. Tickets are available online.
We spoke with Marc Weagraff by telephone and began by asking him how it feels to play the Devil?
by Jarrett Hoffman
Imagine two hypothetical works of music. Piece A has a story behind it — maybe a moment in history, or an issue facing the world, or that time the composer stubbed their toe — while Piece B is just music, period.
For composers, there are some advantages to writing a “Piece A.” They can easily describe it to people who might want to hear, publicize, perform, or present it. And those same people can quickly latch onto something that’s interesting (current event) or relatable (stubbed toe). But just as easily, that concrete description can come to overshadow the actual music in discussions about the piece.
Violinist Leila Josefowicz (above) gave me some gentle sass about this during an interview last fall. She was bringing John Adams’ Scheherazade.2 to The Cleveland Orchestra, and I had asked her a couple conceptual questions about the concerto, which reimagines the character of Scheherazade as a modern, empowered woman. Here’s what she said:
by Daniel Hathaway
As The Cleveland Orchestra prepares to launch its seven-city Asia Tour from March 28 through April 13, and now that the days are beginning to grow longer and brighter, it’s time to have a look at the Orchestra’s concerts for the summer, single tickets for which go on sale on April 1.
Once again, the Orchestra will hold down two fronts — at the Blossom Music Center and at Severance Hall. The Blossom season, which begins on June 29 and ends on September 1, will be bookended by screenings of big hit movies with live performances of John Williams film scores. Blossom begins with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and ends two months later with Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
In between its al fresco concerts in Cuyahoga Falls, The Cleveland Orchestra will put its Severance Hall air conditioning to good use in four “Summers at Severance” events — plus two screenings of the 1989 Batman film with a live performance of Danny Elfman’s score. There’s an outdoor component to the in-town concerts as well: the Severance audiences can spill out onto the front patios for food and drink before and after the performances.
The complete summer schedule follows. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
One of the great joys of teenage ensembles is the sheer vivacity and palpable excitement of the musicians, especially when they get to sink their teeth into important repertoire. This was in full view during this year’s joint Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus concert on Sunday, March 3 at Severance Hall under COYO music director Vinay Parameswaran. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
CityMusic Cleveland celebrated its 15th season with a powerful new piece by its music director Avner Dorman. His Third Violin Concerto was debuted in free concerts with soloist Sayaka Shoji in five different venues across the Cleveland area. I attended the fourth performance on Saturday, March 16 at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus in Slavic Village. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
Sounding Light is a professional-level mixed choir based in the Metro Detroit area, founded in 2003 by Northeast Ohio native Tom Trenney. Trenney is a musical polymath: concert organist, church musician at First-Plymouth Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, conductor, and preacher. He and Sounding Light, along with two fine soloists, soprano Lindsay Kesselman and tenor Brian Giebler, and the Stony Creek High School Choir from Rochester Hills, Michigan, visited Cleveland’s Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist on Friday evening, March 15, to give the local premiere of John Muehleisen’s Pietà. The composer was in attendance.