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Archives for April 2020

DIARY: Thursday, April 30, 2020

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by Daniel Hathaway

UPDATES ON TWO SUMMER FESTIVALS:

Franklin and Diana Cohen announced this morning that Carte Blanche!, the 2020 edition of ChamberFest Cleveland, will be rescheduled for 2021. Noting that every performance ChamberFest has given has been captured in audio and video recordings, the founders added, “While we cannot be with you in the concert hall this June we can come to you in your homes via our Digital Performance Library on YouTube, on radio station WCLV, and with other new and fun ways to connect. With your help nothing will deter us from the mission that inspired us: “to nurture a deep family-like connection between musicians and audiences of all ages.” [Read more…]

BW Vocal Performance Capstone Project takes Hansel and Gretel online

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by Mike Telin

When the 2020 Vocal Performance Program class at Baldwin Wallace Conservatory got together this past August to discuss what their Capstone Project would look like, they decided to create something that would combine their voice studies with their entrepreneurship classes, and involve a community partner.

The seven seniors began laying the groundwork by meeting with Cleveland Opera Theater’s director of education and outreach Megan Thompson, who helped them figure out what they wanted the project to entail and how to structure it. They also discussed what it means to be a teaching artist.

The group ultimately decided that they would design an opera outreach project for elementary school children and produce a thirty-minute adaptation of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.

During a class interview via Zoom, Kailyn Martino, who created that adaptation, said the goal was to make sure that their version would be engaging for elementary school students. “We’ve included the most memorable music from the opera like the Prayer and the Sandman and Dew Fairy arias, and the scene where Gretel teaches Hansel to dance. The plot is driven forward through the narration, so we get to share the entire opera with the kids without keeping them there for hours.” [Read more…]

Oberlin Students partner with UH Elyria for “Gratitude Showers Challenge”

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Back in January, a group of Oberlin students began a collaboration with a nearby hospital. Now those students and others have begun a new initiative to support that hospital’s staff.

The Gratitude Showers Challenge honors the dedication and sacrifice of healthcare professionals at University Hospitals Elyria Medical Center. In recent weeks, the project has been further reenvisioned to involve the creativity of area children and to support a key fundraising initiative at the hospital.

Read Erich Burnett’s article here. [Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, April 29, 2020

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by Daniel Hathaway

IN MEMORIAM DAVID BOE & LYNN  HARRELL:

Yesterday brought news of the passing of long-time Oberlin Conservatory dean and organ professor David Boe (84, in Chicago, of complications of COVID-19), and cellist Lynn Harrell (76, of undisclosed causes) who served as principal cello of The Cleveland Orchestra from 1964-1971 (he took up the post under George Szell at the age of 18).

Boe focused more on pedagogy than performing (he retired in May 2008 after 46 years of teaching at Oberlin). Recordings of his playing are few and include performances of C.P.E. Bach and Mendelssohn on the 1982, 2-LP Gasparo recording Organs of Oberlin. He did make an appearance on the 1986 Nebraska Public Television documentary, Wind at One’s Fingertips, about Lincoln organbuilder Gene Bedient’s new instrument for Grand Rapids, Michigan (watch here). Click here to read the Oberlin Conservatory obituary by Erich Burnett. [Read more…]

New app brings acoustics of Oberlin’s concert halls to your computer

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by Jarrett Hoffman

It’s uncomfortable to be inside a small space. What about being in a large space that’s often full of happy people, except it’s the middle of a pandemic, and you’re there alone?

“It was kind of spooky,” Andrew Tripp said during a recent conversation. Tripp is co-director of the Recording Arts and Production program at Oberlin Conservatory, as well as the associate director of Audio Services.

In early April, he made his way from one performance venue to the next on the mostly vacant campus. Armed with a two-way speaker, omnidirectional microphones, and a portable recorder, his goal was to “sonically document” each space, which involved the playing and recording of both music and a 30-second frequency sweep.

It was an idea Tripp had been cultivating for a few years, but one that was now more relevant than ever: with students unable to visit Oberlin’s halls, the halls could come to the students.

[Read more…]

Cuyahoga Arts & Culture: Apply Now for 2021 Project Funding 

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Cuyahoga Arts & Culture invites nonprofit organizations presenting arts and cultural programs in Cuyahoga County to apply for funding in 2021. CAC is pleased to offer the following grant opportunities:

2021 Project Support I: Grants up to $25,000 for 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations presenting arts and cultural projects in Cuyahoga County in 2021. Project Support I is available to organizations that have previously received CAC funding. Learn more.

2021 Project Support II: Grants up to $5,000 for 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations presenting arts and cultural projects in Cuyahoga County in 2021. Learn more.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Tuesday, April 28, 2020

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by Daniel Hathaway

CHRIS HAFF-PALUCK TRIBUTES:

We’re collecting tributes to the late Christine Haff-Paluck to be published on a dedicated page of the website. That includes many heartfelt comments we’ve culled from Facebook posts. Those who knew Chris and would like to submit a remembrance or a photo should send them by email here.

Among her many accomplishments was the founding of Arts Renaissance Tremont. That concert series brought distinguished area musicians to its free Sunday afternoon concerts at Pilgrim United Church of Christ, and was nearing the end of its 29th season when the novel coronavirus arrived. Here are two examples from ART’s video archives: cellist Darrett Adkins and pianist Cicilia Yudha performing the Chopin Sonata (watch here), and members of The Cleveland Orchestra bass section — the double bass was Chris’s instrument — playing François Rabbath’s Kobalds here. [Read more…]

Revisiting a persistent Beethoven myth: was the composer really stone deaf?

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by Daniel Hathaway

By 2020, the 250th anniversary year of Beethoven’s birth in 1770, you’d think that every aspect of the composer’s life would already have been minutely examined by multiple scholars. Not quite so. There’s the issue of the composer’s hearing problems, which began to affect him as early as 1798 and progressed to the point in May of 1824 that some eyewitnesses at the debut of the Ninth Symphony reported that Beethoven was oblivious to the ardent applause that greeted the performance.

Kent State University musicology professor Theodore Albrecht, who is deep into translating relatively unexplored Beethoven documents, has turned up some surprises. Among them is the suggestion that Beethoven could still hear — if not well — at the premiere of the Ninth. “All the stone-deaf Beethoven stories go out the window,” the scholar said in a recent telephone interview.

That and other discoveries have come to light in the course of Albrecht’s current research project: translating Beethoven’s 139 “Conversation Books” for the first-ever English edition. [Read more…]

Violinist Andrew Sords launches Green Point Editions

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by Mike Telin 

“I’ve always been fascinated with works that are on the fringe of the repertoire,” violinist Andrew Sords said by telephone. The problem with learning and ultimately performing works that are off the beaten track is that even with published works, the editions are often riddled with mistakes, if not illegible. “I’m a little OCD when it comes to the score that’s in front of me. I want it to be legible, correct, and have it provide some historical context.”

Following years of frustration, Sords has taken matters into his own hands. Joining forces with music engraver Daniel Singer, the violinist’s new venture, Green Point Editions, sheds light on musical gems that are often neglected on concert stages. Currently available are works by Franz Joseph Haydn, Jenö Hubay, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jean Sibelius, Claudio Brindis de Salas, and Eugène Ysaÿe/Frederic Chopin.

Misprints in published editions have existed for centuries. Sords noted that Dvořák’s Violin Concerto has a famously wrong note in the final arpeggio. “You can’t blame the performer simply because they are playing from prints that their teachers said had the correct notes. But have some curiosity. Look at the Urtext, or prints from the 19th century that might be a little more accurate.”

[Read more…]

DIARY: Monday, April 27, 2020

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by Daniel Hathaway

IN MEMORIAM CHRIS HAFF-PALUCK:

In a message posted on Sunday, Arts Renaissance Tremont Board President Fred Calatrello wrote:

“It is with great regret and a heavy heart that I must inform you that Chris, our friend, colleague and the moving spirit behind ART, passed away last night with her husband at her bedside. I don’t have to tell any of you what a great loss this is not only for us but also for her many former students, her numberless friends in the musical community and, indeed, anyone who had the good fortune to know and work with her over the many years she lived in and served this community. We all know that in addition to husband, family and friends, Chris’ great passion over the past three decades has been ARTS RENAISSANCE TREMONT; not only did she create the organization but she worked year in and year out to secure funding and artists so that each year we could bring great music to audiences in N.E.Ohio. For Chis, this was truly a labour of love.”

Arrangements are pending. A tribute to Chris will be published on ClevelandClassical.com later this week. [Read more…]

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