by Daniel Hathaway
At first glance, Moon in the Mirror: an Operatic Monodrama in Seven Scenes, with libretto by Zhang Er and Martine Bellen and score by Stephen Dembski, bears a striking resemblance to Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire. Both are centered around a solo soprano who meditates on aspects of the human condition in the pale, ghostly light of Earth’s only satellite — itself a mirror that merely reflects, producing no light of its own. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
Philippe Herreweghe’s musical career began with a focus on Renaissance music and Bach. Later he explored the French Baroque. Still musically curious, he began to examine the Classical and Romantic eras through the lens of period instruments.
More recently, Herreweghe has been brought in regularly by modern orchestras, like the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, to conduct Romantic music in a “new” way — one informed by his experience in early music and historical performance.
One of the latest such invitations has come from The Cleveland Orchestra, with whom the Belgian conductor will make his debut this week. His program at Severance Hall includes Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony and two works by Beethoven: the Overture to Egmont and the Violin Concerto, featuring Isabelle Faust as soloist.
by Daniel Hathaway
Only nine years younger than its East Side counterpart, the Rocky River Chamber Music Society will continue its 61st season with a concert by Germany’s Phaeton Piano Trio on Monday, February 10 at 7:30 pm. The performance at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church is free, but donations are welcome.
While violinist Friedemann Eichorn, cellist Peter Hörr, and pianist Florian Uhlig have been performing together and with colleagues in various combinations for 20 years, the Phaeton Trio is a relatively recent development. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Over the past ten years the adventurous violinist Leila Josefowicz and The Cleveland Orchestra have treated Northeast Ohio audiences to captivating performances of contemporary masterpieces. 2010 saw Thomas Adès’ Violin Concerto, which was followed by John Adams’ Violin Concerto (2011), Thomas Adès’ Concentric Paths (2016), and Adams’ Scheherazade.2 (2018).
On Thursday, February 8 at 7:30 pm, Josefowicz will return to Severance Hall to join conductor Susanna Mälkki in paying tribute to their mentor and friend Oliver Knussen with a performance of the late composer/conductor’s Violin Concerto. The concert will also include Sibelius’ En Saga and Symphony No. 1. The program will be repeated on Saturday, February 8 at 8:00 pm. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
When Susanna Mälkki made her Cleveland Orchestra debut in April of 2015, the Finnish conductor was well on her way to becoming a star in the international conducting firmament. Since that time Mälkki has clearly established herself as one of the leading conductors of our time.
Mälkki is currently in her fourth season as Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and her third season as Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In December of 2016 she made her debut at The Metropolitan Opera leading the premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de loin. A recipient of the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland in 2016, the following year she was named Musical America’s Conductor of the Year.
On Thursday, February 6 at 7:30 pm, Mälkki will return to the Severance Hall podium to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Sibelius’ En Saga and Symphony No. 1.
by Jarrett Hoffman
If you heard about someone sneaking into a rehearsal, you might be forgiven for asking, “Don’t you mean out?” But twelve years ago, a program called Gospel Meets Symphony came across the radar of 16-year-old Jonathon Turner, and he was curious. He asked his uncle to drive him and a friend, Dinareo Hill, to a church on the west side of Akron.
“We kind of snuck in the back, sat in the last row of the sanctuary, and just listened,” Turner, 28, said during a recent phone call. “It was like, oh my God. We had never heard a sound like that, with both gospel music and classical music.”
by Jarrett Hoffman
Akros Percussion Collective will bring what must be one of the most bizarre works in classical music to Weathervane Playhouse in Akron on Sunday, February 9.
The piece is Karlheinz Stockhausen’s 1975 sextet Musik im Bauch (“Music in the Belly”), which requires the performers to move about the stage like automatons, strike a seven-foot doll — his name is Miron, and he has a bird’s head and a human body — and eventually open up the doll’s belly with giant scissors. No guts inside: instead, music boxes, whose melodies have been informing the complex music all along.
It’s part of a presentation by Urban Troubadour, an organization that fittingly aims to put on non-traditional concert experiences.
by Daniel Hathaway
One of the iterations of Music for Food, a musician-led initiative to fight hunger in local communities, is an annual concert to benefit the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. This year’s event will take place at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights on Tuesday, February 18 at 8:00 pm. Sponsored by the Student Government Association of the Cleveland Institute of Music, the performance will bring CIM faculty and students together for music by Camille Saint-Saëns, Charles Gounod, and Felix Mendelssohn.
Faculty musicians include Jeanelle Brierley, Olga Dubossarskaya Kaler, and Jaime Laredo, violins, Sharon Robinson, cello, Mary Kay Fink, flute, Frank Rosenwein, oboe, Afendi Yusuf, clarinet, Barrick Stees, bassoon, and Richard King, horn. [Read more…]
by Peter Feher
The three works on The Cleveland Orchestra’s Thursday, January 30 program all evoked other music — a different composer, another piece, or a famous performance. Opening the concert was Prokofiev’s Sixth Symphony, decidedly a B-side in the composer’s symphonic catalogue. [Read more…]
by Tom Wachunas
Among many fascinating aspects of the January 25 performance by the Canton Symphony Orchestra was the ensemble’s untiring attentiveness to the conductor. Here was a remarkable connectivity, a sharpened focus, a palpable state of eager readiness. The musicians were always alert, ever poised to respond instantaneously and with riveting precision to signals from the podium. Those signals were transmitted in delightfully animated fashion by assistant conductor Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz. [Read more…]