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Archives for November 2024

DIARY: Weekend, November 29—December 1, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Two orchestras are hard at work this weekend.

On Friday at 7:30, Saturday at 8, and Sunday at 3 at Severance Music Center, guest conductor David Robertson will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a program of Americana for Thanksgiving weekend  featuring Pianist Marc-André Hamelin (pictured). Read our interview with Robertson here.

And on Sunday at 2 and 7 in Connor Palace Theatre in Playhouse Square, Carl Topilow will preside over A Jolly Holiday with Cleveland POPS Orchestra & Chorus featuring dancing Santas and adoptable puppies and kittens.

For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Ideastream Public Media reports that “The Cleveland Orchestra’s second century has so far been financially sound. The 2023-24 annual report released Monday showed a sixth consecutive year of balanced books. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “Hope and Solitude” featuring countertenor Reginald Mobley (Nov. 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Apollo’s Fire concertmaster and assistant artistic director Alan Choo curated an thoughtful, unusual, and thoroughly engaging program at Rocky River Presbyterian Church on Sunday afternoon, November 17.

Featuring the formidable vocal gifts of countertenor Reginald Mobley, the program managed to gather under a single banner an orchestral suite and other selections by Henry Purcell, lute music by John Dowland, a suite by John Eccles, and an aria from J.S. Bach’s “Hunting” cantata as well as his solo cantata Ich habe genug. The well-attended concert ended with Spirituals that fit remarkably well into a menu of music played on period instruments.

In his director’s notes, Alan Choo wrote that this program “epitomizes the universality of music and its ability to uplift, heal, and revitalize the human spirit,” quoting the text of 17th-century Anglo-Welsh royalist poet Katherine Phillips’ O Solitude as set by Henry Purcell. [Read more…]

Conductor Santtu-Mathias Rouvali wears his heart on his sleeve in Cleveland Orchestra debut

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Change of plans recently led to unexpected opportunities at The Cleveland Orchestra. And so, this week, guest conductor Santtu-Mathias Rouvali seized the moment. With the Mahler “Das Lied von der Erde” program moved to next season, a rare blank slate appeared. Rouvali stepped in on short notice to make his Cleveland debut presenting an impassioned program.

The three pieces performed on Thursday, Nov. 21 — which will be heard again on Nov. 22 and 23 — share a distinctive expressivity, and each represented an introduction of their own.

Carl Nielsen’s Overture to “Maskarade“ set the scene for the Danish composer’s opera, a well-known work in his home county but rarely played elsewhere. Its five minutes include a whirling ballroom waltz, which Rouvali accentuated by coaxing the brass to cut through the texture. The conductor quickly revealed his taste for flourishes, his motions imbued with a fluttery, cursive affect.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra impresses with Boulanger, Copland, and Rachmaninoff

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Anyone who believes that tired old canard that classical music is dead or dying needed to hear conductor Daniel Reith and the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra play music by Lily Boulanger, Aaron Copland, and Sergei Rachmaninoff in their Autumn Concert at Severance Music Center on Sunday afternoon, November 24.

That challenging program tested COYO’s musicianship. Not only does it run deep, but it’s so sophisticated that the young players can make Boulanger sound French, Copland American, and Rachmaninoff Russian.

Boulanger’s D’un Matin de Printemps was light and airy, conjuring up in its five minutes a Gallic Spring morning with lovely solos by concertmaster Aika Birch and individual winds. Surges suggested the burgeoning surprises nature still had in store.

[Read more…]

Oberlin to present Rhiannon Giddens’ and Michael Ables’ Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Omar

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by Mike Telin

“What makes that document so remarkable is that it is a window into a world that we don’t talk about and that we don’t teach about, and it’s just miraculous that it survived,” composer Rhiannon Giddens told Martha Teichner during a Spoleto Conversations interview. “We have so few of these documents and each one holds multitudes in it. We have so little and it’s a miracle that we have it at all.”

The document that Giddens is referring to is the 1831 autobiography of Omar ibn Said, the only known autobiography written by an enslaved person during their enslavement, and the only document written in Arabic by an enslaved person.

During that same interview, composer Michael Ables noted that the document was written at a time when it was illegal to teach enslaved people to read and write. “And why is that? Because they knew that knowledge is power, and Omar’s power to speak to us today is expressed through the fact that he was educated.”

[Read more…]

David Robertson to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a program of Americana

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by Mike Telin

While many performing organizations take time off during the Thanksgiving weekend, The Cleveland Orchestra will continue its tradition of playing concerts on Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoon at Severance Music Center. “I think this is a wonderful program to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday,” guest conductor David Robertson said during a Zoom call.

On Friday at 7:30 pm, Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sunday at 3:00 pm, Robertson will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in an All-American program that includes Aaron Copland’s Suites from Appalachian Spring and The Tender Land. Pianist Marc-André Hamelin will be the featured soloist in George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Duke Ellington’s New World A-Comin’. A free concert preview with James O’Leary, Associate Professor of Musicology at Oberlin College and Conservatory, takes place in Reinberger Chamber Hall one hour before each performance. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

Tuesday Musical presents “Kings ReJoyce!” with Joyce DiDonato, Kings Return, and Craig Terry

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by Mike Telin

With the month of December almost upon us, it’s always interesting to see which of Northeast Ohio’s music organizations will lead the way with holiday programs.

On Tuesday, December 3 at 7:30 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall, Akron’s Tuesday Musical will present “Kings ReJoyce!” with celebrated mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, the sensational a capella group Kings Return, and pianist Craig Terry. The Akron performance is the first stop on a seven-city tour. Tickets are available online.

DiDonato’s first-ever holiday show features a treasure trove of seasonal favorites, including “Carol of the Bells,” “Christmas Waltz,” “O Holy Night,” “Sleigh Ride” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” as well as a Motown medley, two versions of “Ave Maria,” and a vocalized “Nutcracker Suite.”

Because of time zone conflicts we were unable to connect with Joyce DiDonato by phone, but she graciously agreed to answer questions by email.

[Read more…]

Finding the Joy with Seckou Keita: Senegalese kora player visits the Oberlin Artist Recital Series

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by Stephanie Manning

Reposted with the permission of Oberlin Conservatory

The kora, a West African stringed instrument akin to a harp or guitar, doesn’t appear in most orchestral works. So Seckou Keita wrote his own.

Creating African Rhapsodies — which he released in 2023 with the BBC Concert Orchestra — was an “amazing” endeavor, he says. But his entry into the world of opera later that year was another thing entirely.

“When you have classical music meeting the kora, it’s amazing. But then when you have opera on top of that, it’s something else,” says the UK-based Senegalese musician. “That made me really excited.”

The opera he’s referring to is Omar’s Journey, a shortened version of Rhiannon Giddens’ Omar scored for voices and chamber ensemble. Keita was among the small group of musicians who performed Omar’s Journey at the Ojai Music Festival last year. “It kind of confirmed to me that voice is one of the really pure instruments in life. All those other instruments in the world have been made by humankind — but this, people are born with it,” Keita says.

Keita is no stranger to using his voice either, singing to accompany his playing in much of his solo material. And Oberlin audiences have a chance to experience his music making on December 7 at 7:30 pm, when he performs in Finney Chapel as part of the Artist Recital Series. [Read more…]

CIM Opera: all smiles in L’Étoile (Nov. 17)

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by Stephanie Manning

A black box theater might not be the first-choice location for an opera — but with a clever creative team, a smaller production can still get big results. Audiences at the Westfield Studio Theater on November 17 know this firsthand thanks to the Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Theater’s scaled-down L’Étoile, which came wrapped in a bundle of laughs and topped with a ribbon of genuine heart.

It’s true that the Playhouse Square venue — the CIM company’s temporary home while their primary hall is under construction — wasn’t ideal. Interrupted sightlines, occasional volume disparities, and the lack of a proper curtain simply had to be par for the course. But artistic director JJ Hudson’s choice of a comedic opera, especially one that relies on spoken dialogue and physical comedy as heavily as this one by Emmanuel Chabrier, was the perfect decision. [Read more…]

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