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Archives for May 2023

Click, Click, Click: ChamberFest Cleveland

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by Mike Telin

(This article was originally posted on April 12, 2023)

ChamberFest Cleveland is looking for metronomes! If you have a wind-up metronome, ChamberFest would love to borrow it for this performance of Ligeti’s Poème symphonique on Friday, June 30. Please contact the office at 216-471-8887 or info@chamberfestcleveland.com to arrange a pick-up. All metronomes will be returned to their owners after the festival ends.

There are a few works in the classical repertoire that leave you wondering what is going on. One example that comes to mind is John Cage’s 4’33” where the performers are instructed not to play for the duration of the work’s three movements.

[Read more…]

ChamberFest 2023:
Lightness of Being

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by Mike Telin

From the beginning, ChamberFest Cleveland’s programming has centered around creative themes such as The Big Bang (2012), Crossing Borders (2015), and most recently X (2022). For season eleven, which runs from June 14 through July 1, the Festival takes on a literary slant with Lightness of Being.

During a Zoom conversation with Roman Rabinovich and Diana Cohen — two of the Festival’s three artistic directors — Rabinovich said that he has been a fan of Milan Kundera’s 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being for many years. “Last summer I reread it, I think for the third time, and it really pulled me in. It’s rich in ideas that are very deep but also entertaining and timeless. And Kundera is also an amazing writer about music — you can tell he has a deep knowledge of classical music.”

Cohen added that like music, that novel explores every aspect of the human condition with its archetypes of personalities, relationships, politics, war, and culture. “It explores so many different multitudes that we decided to see what we could do with it.”

[Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, May 31, 2023

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By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Keeping it in the Kern family (pictured)

. Replace-a-maestro: latest sudden ascent of a young conductor

. Almanac: Mexican-American guitarist and singer Lydia Mendoza, Groundbreaking pianist Louise Farrenc

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 7:30 pm, Piano Cleveland hosts a new episode in its 2023 Listening Series — Cleveland International Piano Competition Dynamic Duos: “It’s all Relative.” Olga Kern joins her son Vladislav in a presentation about the joys of working together as a musical family. Disciples Christian Church 3663 Mayfield Rd. Cleveland Heights. Click here for tickets.

IN THE NEWS:

From The New York Times:

Thomas Guggeis was a young repetiteur at the Berlin State Opera five years ago when he was asked a career-changing question: Could he conduct “Salome”?

He had worked with the singers, but this new production of Strauss’s opera was meant to be led by the veteran maestro Christoph von Dohnányi — until a dispute with the director led him to back out mere hours before the final dress rehearsal. So Guggeis went on in his place. And he was back in the pit on opening night. [Read more…]

DIARY: Tuesday, May 30, 2023

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by Jarrett Hoffman

IN THIS EDITION:

•Today: “Reunion Concert” for Covenant music staff (pictured) 

•Announcements: two open admin positions with the Lima Symphony, and two new live recordings of music by Julia Perry from the Akron Symphony

•Almanac: the deep listening and sonic meditations of Pauline Oliveros

HAPPENING TODAY:

The season finale of the Church of the Covenant’s Tuesday Noon Organ Plus series is a reunion concert for Covenant music staff “featuring three organs, handbells, and who knows what else!” On the program: music by J.S. Bach, John Ferguson, Robert Broth, Justin Heinrich Knecht, John Stanley, Hugo Distler, and Lionel Rogg. Details and livestream here. A freewill offering will be taken up.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Weekend, May 26 – 29,  2023

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By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Only one concert is scheduled for this weekend

. A selection of music for Memorial Day, formerly Decoration Day (pictured)

. Remembering William Bolcom, Niccolò Paganini, and Nikolai Sokoloff, and mentioning the births of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Iannis Zenakis, Helmut Rilling and the losses of William S. Gilbert, Josef Suk, and George Rochberg

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday, May 27 at 8:00 pm, Carl Topilow leads the Cleveland Pops Orchestra and Chorus in Summon the Heroes: American Salute. The concert pays tribute to our Armed Forces, as well as the police and fire departments, and our first responders. Severance Music Center, 11001 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, 44106. Tickets available online.

MUSIC FOR MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND:

Monday of this weekend was officially declared Memorial Day only in 1971, although commemorations of those who had perished in the U.S. Civil War had been organized within a few months of the cessation of hostilities in 1865. Among the first to hold such a memorial was a group of formerly enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina.

The event, when graves were traditionally adorned with flowers, was known as Decoration Day well into the 20th century, the name Charles Ives used for the second movement of his Holiday Symphony, discussed here in an episode of Keeping Score, created by Michael Tilson Thomas with the San Francisco Symphony (the other holidays are Washington’s Birthday, The Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving Day.) [Read more…]

23rd Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival Opens at CIM Next Weekend (June 1-4)

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by Daniel Hathaway

When I telephoned Armin Kelly, founder and artistic director of the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival, to hear details of their 23rd trip around the Sun from June 1-4 at the Cleveland Institute of Music, he was deep into proofreading the 40-page festival program — and worrying as all presenters of international artists do about what could possibly happen to his best-laid plans this year.

A sudden resurgence of COVID? A visa snafu? “The volcanic eruption in Mexico scares me — could that disrupt international flights? Ah, the joys and white knuckles of presenting live concerts,” Kelly mused. He added one of the recurring nightmares of an English literature major to the list: he’s just sure there’s a typo or misspelling lurking somewhere undetected in a corner of the program book, only to reveal itself once hundreds of copies have been printed.

Casting those cares aside, Kelly said he’s very proud of that book and its “amazing” program notes by Tom Poore. “His musical insights and human interest comments have been an important part of the festival since the beginning.”

Another thing he’s proud of is the inclusion of the James Stroud International Youth Competition in the Festival for the fourth time. The final round will be held live for the first time on Sunday evening of the festival weekend. [Read more…]

DIARY: Thursday, May 25, 2023

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by Jarrett Hoffman

IN THIS EDITION:

•Announcements: YSU Youth Orchestra auditions, the Suburban Symphony looks for violinists, and next season from the Canton Symphony

•Almanac: the many talents and the early modernism of pianist and composer Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins (pictured)

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Dana School of Music has announced auditions for the YSU Youth Orchestra program. You can send a video by September 9, or audition in person on September 10 between 12 and 5 pm at Bliss Hall. More information here.

The Suburban Symphony is looking for violinists to join the orchestra for its June concert and for next season. Find out more here.

And the Canton Symphony has announced its 2023-24 season. Click here to peruse the MasterWorks and Pops series as well as the “Gospel Joins Symphony” concert, and here for Divergent Sounds. Season subscriptions go on sale on July 5, while single tickets come on the market on August 15.

[Read more…]

Local 4 Music Fund’s She Scores: Round Three

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by Mike Telin

When the Institute for Composer Diversity analyzed the 2019-20 seasons of 120 American orchestras, it found that just eight percent of all pieces performed were composed by women. For Amber Rogers, artistic director of the Local 4 Music Fund, that statistic was a call for action. “The idea of concerts featuring female composers isn’t new, but I didn’t see anything quite like this in Cleveland,” Rogers told ClevelandClassical.com’s Stephanie Manning in June of 2021.

On June 2 and 3 at 7:00 pm and June 4 at 4:00 pm at Cleveland State University’s Drinko Hall, She Scores 2023 will feature nineteen compositions by fourteen composers. Emily Laurance will present a pre-concert lecture 45 minutes prior to each free performance. Visit our Concert Listings page for composer names, composition titles, and performers.

“We are adding one piece to the June 3rd concert to honor the late composer Dolores White,” Rogers said during a recent telephone conversation. “Eric Charnofsky met with Dolores’s daughter Dianna and she gave him a couple of scores to pick from. We talked about them and looked at our instrumentation, and Eric and Drew Hosler are doing a piece for saxophone and piano.”

[Read more…]

“Honoring Black Composers” at Karamu House (May 21)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Sunday afternoon’s audience at Jelliffe Theatre at Karamu House was treated to a thoughtfully curated, well-performed program honoring several 20th- and 21st-century Black composers. Karamu House made for an especially congenial setting, and Allison Loggins-Hull, The Cleveland Orchestra’s 11th Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow, was a gracious and thought-provoking host. This was the last event in The Cleveland Orchestra’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival.

Loggins-Hull periodically provided notes about the program. She is an elegant and compelling presence onstage, and a passionate spokesperson on behalf of her music as well as that of her fellow composers — notably through the lens of social justice.

Transcribed by the composer from her 2014 violin work, Jessie Montgomery’s Rhapsody No. 1 for solo viola felt like a slice of American fiddle tradition, enhanced by Eliesha Nelson’s sympathetic and sonorous performance. A plaintive six-note melody begins its journey, first in double stopped dialogue with itself, then as isolated accents over furious arpeggiation, before ending largely as it began.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, May 24, 2023

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By Daniel Hathaway

IN THIS EDITION:

. Gallery music returns to CMA

. Ticket sales are steadily recovering post-Pandemic, says the New York Times, in an article featuring The Cleveland Orchestra and its inaugural Arts & Humanities Festival

. Almanac: Premiere of Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata by George Bridgetower (pictured), births of Harold Budd, Michael Horwood & Phil Fried, departure of Jacob Druckman

HAPPENING TODAY:

There’s music in the galleries at the Cleveland Museum of Art again today at 6pm. “Modern, American, and Accessible” will find Eva Mondragon, violin & viola, Jenny Cluggish, violin, Paul Kirk, fiddle, Stephan Haluska, harp, Ellie Glorioso, cello, and Chris Jenkins, viola performing works by modern American composers in the Contemporary Art Gallery. Composers range from Pulitzer Prize–winner Caroline Shaw to African American composer Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, and the playlist will include concert music by comedic classical composer Peter Schickele, and fiddle music arranged by Paul Kirk. It’s free.

INTERESTING READ:

The  Cleveland Orchestra and its inaugural Arts and Humanities Festival are featured in today’s print edition of The New York Times as part of a general survey of organizations that are now seeing an increase in subscriptions and ticket sales following a drop off during the pandemic and a weak recovery at the beginning of the concert season. [Read more…]

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