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Archives for August 2023

Second annual Silent Film Festival to run September 6-9

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by Mike Telin

When you create something successful, people want more. Such is the case with the Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium, which made its debut in January of 2022. “People kept asking me when I was going to do it again,” Festival founder Emily Laurance said over coffee.

The second edition of the Festival, which runs September 6-9, will include screenings of five films, each with live accompanying music, at three locations around Cleveland.

Laurance, a visiting associate professor of musicology at Oberlin Conservatory, noted that Colorado-based Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra will be returning, and the partnership with the Cinematheque at the Cleveland Institute of Art continues as well.

“This year we’re bringing in noted theater organist Clark Wilson, and the Western Reserve Theater Organ Society and Radio on the Lake Theater are new partnerships.” New venues include Masonic Auditorium and Cleveland Museum of Art. Click here for tickets and more information.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Silent Film Festival opener to feature organist Clark Wilson

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by Daniel Hathaway

Three of the classics to be screened at the Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium from September 6-9 will enjoy the live collaboration of Colorado’s Mont Alto Silent Film Orchestra. But Harold Lloyd’s iconic comedy Safety Last!, the opening event on Wednesday, September 6 at 7 pm at Masonic Auditorium, will be accompanied by a single musician.

Organist Clark Wilson is one of the most prominent scorers of silent photoplays in America today. His accompaniments reflect the techniques and materials of the musical performances given in major picture palaces during the heyday of silent film.

One of those resources is the theater organ, which represents a special tributary in the grand stream of pipe organ history, and was only made possible by developments in electricity around the turn of the 20th century.

Before that time, the liaison between player and pipes was mechanical. Once inventors like Robert Hope-Jones in Britain discovered how to open valves to let air into pipework electrically, entirely new possibilities arose. That led to inventions like the Hope-Jones Unit Orchestra, which comprised a small number of ranks whose individual pipes could be wired in at different pitches on different keyboards.

According to the Western Reserve Theater Organ Society website, “The tonal sounds of the theater organ were designed specifically to provide more robust and engaging music to match the action and storyline of the silent film. [Read more…]

Music from the Western Reserve opens season with the Dave Banks Big Band

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 by Mike Telin

“There’s nothing like the sound of a big band,” trumpeter and band leader Dave Banks said during a recent conversation. “And to have a band that’s got that powerhouse kind of sound makes a real impact on the audience.”

On Sunday, September 10 at 5:00 pm at  Christ Episcopal Church in Hudson, Music from the Western Reserve will open their season with the Dave Banks Big Band featuring vocalist Sandra Montevideo. A pre-concert chat begins at 4:30. Tickets available online.

I caught up with the Cuyahoga Falls native by Zoom, and began by asking what the audience will hear during “Big Band on Broadway!”

Dave Banks: It’s big band music, but everything has a Broadway connection — songs that have either been in a show on Broadway or are about Broadway. Some of them got their start in the movies but ended up on Broadway, so it’s an interesting concept. [Read more…]

DIARY: Thursday, August 31, 2023

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by Jarrett Hoffman

IN THIS EDITION:

•Today: Canton Symphony closes out Summer Serenades with brass quintet

•Performing opportunities: Western Reserve Chorale, YSU Youth Orchestra (pictured), and Kent State Communiversity Band

•Almanac: Albert Riemenschneider and BW Bach Festival

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 6:30 pm, the Canton Symphony’s free Summer Serenades series finishes up with a brass quintet performance at Stadium Park in Canton. Bring a chair or blanket and some picnic food, and enjoy the music (and the weather).

[Read more…]

Simone Lamsma brings Saint-Saëns violin concerto to Blossom Music Center (Aug. 26)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The Cleveland Orchestra’s final classical concert at Blossom Music Center on Saturday, like the last rose of summer, was the unexpected apogee of the season. Transforming a generic-sounding program titled “Impressions of France and Spain,” conductor Fabien Gabel captivated in works of Ravel, de Falla, and Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3, with which soloist Simone Lamsma won everyone’s heart.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, August 30, 2023

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By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 8, WCLV’s Ovations revisits performances from the three concerts of Local #4 Music Fund’s “She Scores 2023,” which were presented in June. 

Tune in on 90.3 or listen online, and view a gallery of composers and artists here. (Pictured: executive director & violist Amber Rogers by Derek Snyder)

NEWS BRIEFS:

The Cavani String Quartet has been appointed ensemble in residence at Cleveland State University for the 2023-2024 academic year. The ensemble welcomes a new violist this season. Ayane Kozasa replaces Eric Wong, who has joined the faculty of Vanderbilt University,.

In a related story, former Cavani founding cellist Merry Peckham will leave her position as chair of chamber music at the New England Conservatory to become assistant dean and director of chamber music at the Juilliard School in New York beginning on January 1.

Single tickets are now on sale for Tuesday Musical’s six-concert series in Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall, which, features Latin Grammy winner Cuarteto Latinoamericano on Oct. 24, a holiday program by The King’s Singers on Dec. 5, the Kyiv Virtuosi Symphony Orchestra on March 12 & the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis on April 20. Click here.

Registration is now open for all programming at both campuses of The Music Settlement, including private lessons, Suzuki lessons, and group classes and ensembles. Click here for more information. [Read more…]

DIARY: Tuesday, August 29, 2023

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by Jarrett Hoffman

IN THIS EDITION:

•Announcements: Guitar Orchestras registration, Cleveland Repertory Orchestras vacancies, Joyce Awards applications

•Almanac: the premiere of 4′33″, its influences — including the “White Paintings” of Robert Rauschenberg and an experience in a silent chamber — and the difference in its working title

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Registration for the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s 2023-24 Guitar Orchestras ends August 31. More information here.

The Cleveland Repertory Orchestra has announced vacancies for oboe 3 / English horn, utility horn, trombone 2, violin, viola, and bass. The ensemble is also accepting applications for all other sections to join the sub list. Details here.

And the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation is accepting applications for the 2024 Joyce Awards, which support nonprofit arts, culture, and community-based organizations in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and/or Minneapolis-St. Paul that partner with artists of color to create new work that engages and builds community. Letters of intent are due September 11. Learn more here.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Monday, August 28, 2023

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By Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

From 2-4 pm, Eric Charnofsky (pictured) hosts the latest edition of Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music from the studios of WRUW (if power has been restored to the station’s transmitter after the dramatic weather of the last few days).

Look forward to hearing infrequently encountered music by Alec Wilder, Michael Leese, Ernest Gold, Jane Antonia Cornish, selections from Handel Goes Wild, and works by Charnofsky himself. Click here to listen to the internet feed: or tune in to 91.1 FM in the greater Cleveland area.

Click here to visit the Concert Listings page for information about coming events.

INTERESTING READS:

Why should composers write for amateur musicians?
Tom Service asks, “Why is there a gap between today’s composers and the repertoires of most of the musical ensembles in the country – which are not the professionals, but the amateur groups of all kinds who are the fabric of our musical life? It’s a situation that’s a historical anomaly in the wider course of the story of music.

[Read more…]

Simone Lamsma brings Saint-Saëns violin concerto to Blossom Music Center

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by Mike Telin

Time is running out to catch The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center this summer. On Saturday, August 26 at 7:00 pm, guest conductor Fabien Gabel will lead The Orchestra in a program titled “Impressions of France and Spain.” The program will include Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso and Suite No. 2 from Daphnis and Chloé, and De Falla’s Suite No. 2 from The Three-Cornered Hat.

This is the final Classical concert at Blossom in 2023. Bring young people along and take advantage of the Under 18s for free on the lawn program. Click here for more information. Tickets are available online.

The concert will feature Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3, with Simone Lamsma as soloist. Lamsma made her Cleveland Orchestra debut at Severance Music Center in May of 2014 and her Blossom debut in August of 2015. “I’m so happy to be coming back. The Cleveland Orchestra is so refined — there’s an exquisite nobility in the way that they play,” the Dutch violinist said during a telephone conversation from the Netherlands.

[Read more…]

Pianist Mao Fujita leads Cleveland Orchestra in bold performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (Aug 19)

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This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

By Peter Feher

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — The Cleveland Orchestra went into Saturday’s concert at Blossom Music Center with more than a few unknowns. It’s not every week that this ensemble tackles a pair of new pieces, welcomes both a debuting conductor and soloist, and even takes a risk with the order of the evening’s program.

Still, for all the novelty, the Orchestra’s performance on Aug. 19 followed the same satisfying arc of any conventional symphonic concert. In classical music, the formula for success — and one surefire way to get a crowd on its feet — is to save the best for last.

[Read more…]

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