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Archives for May 2022

DIARY: Monday, May 16, 2022

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by Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. The latest episode of Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music

. Tuesday Musical’s 2022 Scholarship Competition Final Round/Winners Concert (winners pictured)

. A new production of Anthony Davis’s opera “X” opens in Detroit

. Almanac: composer Richard Wilson born in Cleveland.

TODAY’S EVENTS:

At 2:00 pm  – Eric Charnofsky hosts the weekly radio broadcast Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music. Today’s program includes the third symphony of David Diamond, Bright Sheng’s My Song for piano, Secret Ground for flute, clarinet, violin, and cello by Judith Shatin, George Enescu’s Violin Sonata No. 3, and Allegro di Concerto “Alla Mendelssohn” for double bass and piano by Giovanni Bottesini. WRUW, Case Western Reserve University. Click here to listen to the internet feed. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra performs Schubert: light and dark collide (May 12)

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by Stephanie Manning

Many musicians will remember exactly what they were rehearsing in March of 2020, when the music suddenly stopped. For The Cleveland Orchestra, that unlucky piece was Schubert’s Symphony No. 9, which at the time was only heard by a private audience of staff members. More than two years later, the Orchestra finally gave the work the live performance it deserved on May 12 — and the seats at Severance Music Center were plenty full.

Conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, the Orchestra was in their element for the popular symphony, also known as “The Great” — a nickname born not out of a value designation, but to differentiate it from a shorter work of Schubert’s also in C Major. Clocking in at just under an hour in total, the four demanding movements are a test of endurance, which prompted the woodwind section to enlist some assistant players.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra delivers a spirited spring concert (May 8)

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by Stephanie Manning

An immigrant mother, struggling with her sense of identity, makes a plea to her new homeland in the hopes that her newborn daughter will have an easier time navigating it. This sentiment, presented in musical form, was especially fitting for a concert on Mother’s Day — not to mention one with a high percentage of mothers in the audience.

That is the narrative of Reena Esmail’s She Will Transform You, which opened the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’s spring concert on May 8. Led by music director Vinay Parameswaran at Severance Music Center, the young musicians were in fine form this past Sunday evening, and their performance delivered plenty of moments of outstanding musicianship.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Weekend, May 13 – 15, 2022  

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by Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. The concert calendar has an expansive list of performances.

. Almanac: This weekend’s births include Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan, Otto Klemperer, and Claudio Monteverdi.

THIS WEEKEND’S EVENTS:

There appears to be something for everyone this weekend, which offers music from the very old to the very new played by chamber groups, choruses, orchestras, brass and percussion ensembles, and soloists. Check our Concert Listings page for details. [Read more…]

DIARY: Thursday, May 12, 2022

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by Jarrett Hoffman

IN THIS EDITION:

•Today’s schedule: Cleveland Orchestra, Oberlin Performance & Improvisation, and Youngstown Symphony

•A job opening at BW, English National Opera treating long COVID, and a profile of three South Asian early-music vocalists including Sherezade Panthaki

•Almanac: imagining a joint-birthday party for Giovanni Viotti, Jules Massenet, Gabriel Fauré, and Wu Fei, speculating over who would get along and who wouldn’t, at least until dessert

[Read more…]

A Magnificent Feast from the Canton Symphony (Apr. 30)

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by Tom Wachunas

Talk about perfect timing. In this abysmal era so saturated with our blood and tears, along comes the Canton Symphony Orchestra (CSO) with its inspiring April 30 concert, called Music For Humanity, presenting a lavish feast to feed yearning souls.

The first half of the evening featured two works conducted by the vivacious associate conductor Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz, beginning with Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No.1. Composed in 1986 by Joan Tower, the work was inspired by Aaron Copland’s iconic fanfare and employed the same instrumentation of brass and percussion.

Tower dedicated this surprisingly brief work to “women who take risks and are adventurous.” Adventurous to be sure. While the opening theme is a subtle echo of Copland’s, the CSO brass was remarkably bright, crisp and crackling in its relentless morphing of the motif into quick, layered variations, both delicate and discordant, robustly spiced with startling bursts of timpani. [Read more…]

Nu Deco Ensemble brings Classical with a Twist to Tuesday Musical (May 4)

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by Peter Feher

Tuesday Musical has been straying from its usual formula in a way that seems to be working. The Akron concert series brought its season to a close last Wednesday with a performance that exemplified the “classical with a twist” style the presenter has hit upon lately.

Nu Deco Ensemble, a Miami-based group that has gone on the road a couple times, took the stage at EJ Thomas Hall on May 4, bringing a setup that was part orchestra and part rock band. Jacomo Bairos conducted the ensemble, which included a string quartet, a medium-sized wind section, and a handful of players on guitars, keyboards, and percussion — all amplified.

Nu Deco can cover a range of genres with this instrumental variety. One mode the group easily adopts might be called “classical music reinvigorated,” in the vein of crossover projects like Mannheim Steamroller or the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Mozart & the Chevalier at St. Raphael in Bay Village (May 8)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Turning thirty is a Big Deal for an individual, but no less significant a milestone for a musical ensemble. Just ask the musicians of Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, who marked that occasion with a trio of concerts last weekend led by its founder Jeannette Sorrell.

The middle show, on Saturday in Mandel Hall at Severance Music Center,  reflected the Orchestra’s stature as a group that can share a stage with distinguished ensembles in mainline venues. The programs on Friday and Sunday in churches in Akron and Bay Village took profit of Apollo’s Fire’s portability and its determination to bring music out to people where they are.

The programming was festive, featuring an overture, a solo motet, and a symphony by the divine Mozart, and unusual for highlighting the work of a fascinating, under- unexplored composer who could handily win a sword fight against five attackers in the afternoon, then dust himself off and play chamber music at night. [Read more…]

Quire Cleveland— Resonant Glory: Music for Grand Spaces 

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by Mike Telin

Have you ever walked into a Cathedral and heard music coming from some place and you needed to find out where? While your ear told you to proceed down the left side of the building, as you got closer you discovered that the sound was actually originating from the other side of the space.

While scientifically this phenomenon is known as the acoustic, “more importantly it’s the concept of having the space become the nth member of the ensemble,” artistic director Jay White said during a recent telephone conversation. =

On Friday, May 13 at 7:30 pm in the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, White will lead Quire Cleveland in “Resonant Glory: Music for Grand Spaces.” The program, which celebrates the union of music and architecture, will be repeated on Saturday at 8:00 pm at St. Noel Church in Willoughby, and on Sunday at 5:00 pm at St. Sebastian Church in Akron. The concerts are free.

White said that his inspiration for the program came while he was making a list of his favorite pieces for double choir. “I thought, wait a minute, why do we have double choir works to begin with?” Answering that question led White to alter his approach to making the list. [Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: William Kanengiser’s “Global Guitar”

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by Jarrett Hoffman

“I’ve always thought of the guitar as a universal instrument,” William Kanengiser said during a recent interview. “Every musical culture has some relative of the guitar, so it’s well-suited for evoking those different cultures.”

On Saturday, May 14 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church, Kanengiser will conclude the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s 2021-2022 International Series with a program titled “Global Guitar.” Tickets are available here.

One important element in the program is Kanengiser’s ongoing Diaspora Project, in which he commissions new works dedicated to groups of people who have left their ancestral homelands behind. That project will be represented by three pieces on Saturday, including a premiere by Andrea Clearfield.

[Read more…]

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