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Archives for November 2024

Cuarteto Casals pays a thrilling revisit to Cleveland Chamber Music Society (Nov. 12)

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by Daniel Hathaway

In 2022, the Barcelona-based Cuarteto Casals was forced by a medical emergency to interrupt their rhythm of every-other-year performances on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series. Happily, they returned in fine fettle on November 12 at Disciples Church with a program of Mozart, Gubaidulina, and Brahms —  and with a new violist.

Cristina Cordero replaced Jonathan Brown at the beginning of the current season, seamlessly joining violinists Abel Tomàs and Vera Martinez Mehner and cellist Arnau Tomàs in the ensemble that was founded at the Escuela Reina Sofia in Madrid in 1997.

Blindfolded, you could almost convince yourself that you were hearing three different string quartets during this sensitively-played program, so masterfully did the Cuarteto adapt its tone and approach to suit the three works on the agenda. [Read more…]

DIARY, Tuesday, November 26, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 12 Noon, organist Emily Amos plays a recital of French music by Charles Tournemire, Louis Vierne, and Paul Dukas on the chancel organ at the Church of the Covenant. Hear it in person or click here for the live stream..

And tonight at 7 pm, the Fryderyk Chopin Institute of Ohio presents an inaugural Thanksgiving Concert, Sound of Warsaw, featuring pianists Jiana Peng and Konrad Binienda. Grzegorz Nowak leads the Chopin Institute Orchestra at the Dodero Center for Performing Arts at Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills.

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

CAC GRANTS:

On November 20, Cuyahoga Arts & Culture announced the approval of grants totaling $10,750,847 in support of 300 Cuyahoga County nonprofit organizations in 2025 through CAC’s General Operating Support, Project Support and Cultural Heritage grant programs. “Since 2006, CAC has invested more than $257 million in 500 organizations.” [Read more…]

DIARY: Monday, November 24, 2024

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by Stephanie Manning

LOOKING AHEAD:

This holiday week is, unsurprisingly, pretty quiet. But be on the lookout for the upcoming offerings from the Fryderyk Chopin Institute of Ohio, West Shore Chorale and Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, and Cleveland Pops.

For details on these and more, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Musical America has revealed the 2024 winners of its annual “of the year” awards, which includes some faces familiar to Clevelanders.

Pianist Víkingur Ólafsson (pictured) earned Instrumentalist of the Year. He’s performed with The Cleveland Orchestra on multiple occasions — most recently at Blossom in August — and will return to Severance Hall in February for a duo recital with fellow pianist Yuja Wang.

Barbara Hannigan — who made her Cleveland Orchestra conducting debut in 2023 — was honored as Artist of the Year, while Jake Heggie was named Composer of the Year. Nightingale Opera Theater staged Heggie’s operas If I Were You in 2022 and Two Remain in 2024. Read more about all the winners here.
[Read more…]

DIARY, Weekend, November 23-24, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

The concert schedule heats up on the weekend before Thanksgiving!

On Saturday: Oberlin faculty and guests present The Last Rose of Summer, Cleveland Silent Film Festival screens a 1925 ethnographic documentary with score by santour player Mahtab Nadalian, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra features concertmaster James Thompson, Les Délices continues exploring the 14th century Avant-garde, the Canton Symphony celebrates the centenary of Rhapsody in Blue, Firelands Symphony plays a Thanksgiving program, Relic Ensemble journeys into the Underworld, and The Cleveland Orchestra features violinist Stefan Jackiw.

On Sunday, the Canton Symphony repeats Saturday’s program, Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra plays its fall concert, Choral Arts Cleveland visits music by female composers of the last millennium, violinist Amy Lee (pictured) solos with Heights Chamber Orchestra, and clarinetist Stanislav Golovin is featured with Suburban Symphony, BlueWater String Quartet plays at St. James, Lakewood, Les Délices plays medieval music at Disciples Church, Firelands Symphony Chorale sings songs of Thanksgiving, Lakeland Civic Band remembers a childhood, the YSU Wind Ensemble plays at Stambaugh Auditorium in Youngstown, and the Baldwin Wallace Motet Choir performs in Berea.

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

OMAR OPERA AT OBERLIN AND IN CLEVELAND:

Rhiannon Giddens’ and Michael Abels’ Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Omar will be presented in a concert version on December 6 in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel and December 8 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center in Cleveland. [Read more…]

DIARY, Friday, November 22, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Four events begin tonight at 7:30. Violinist James Thompson (pictured) solos in Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra in Rocky River, Les Délices presents 14th century avant-garde music in Hudson, Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducts The Cleveland Orchestra with violin soloist Stefan Jackiw, and Opera Western Reserve stages Verdi’s La Traviata in Youngstown.

And tonight at 8, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project hosts Drew Wesely and Uno Lady at Calicchia Gallery Studio.

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

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

On her designated feast day, pour one out for St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music and musicians. [Read more…]

Oberlin Opera stages a Cendrillon of professional quality (Nov. 10)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Any regional opera company would be popping its buttons with pride to have produced such an impressive performance of Jules Massenet’s Cendrillion (Cinderella) as Oberlin Opera did in Hall Auditorium on Sunday afternoon, November 10.

Imaginative staging by Stephanie Havey, skillful pacing by conductor James Feddeck, beautiful set design and costuming by Laura Carlson-Tarantowski and Chris Flaharty, respectively, plus dramatic and — for the fairies — enchanting lighting by Jeremy K. Benjamin provided a supportive environment for splendid singing by the cast and brilliant playing by the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra.

Literally thousands of versions of the Cinderella tale exist in cultures around the globe, but many of the details of Massenet’s opera date back to Charles Perrault’s 1697 Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre, which adds what have now become essential elements to the tale: a young girl mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters, who temporarily attracts the attention of a handsome prince at a royal ball and is eventually reunited with him to become a princess herself. [Read more…]

Cleveland Silent Film & Colloquium: Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life

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by Mike Telin

When Mahtab Nadalian was asked to create a score for the film Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life, the Pittsburgh-based santour player was intrigued by the idea. “I’ve never played a live accompaniment for a silent film, so it sounded like a very interesting project,” she said during a recent telephone conversation.

On Saturday, November 23 at 7:00 pm at the Cinematheque, the Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium will present Merian C. Cooper’s and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s 1925 documentary film complete with an original score composed and performed by Mahtab Nadalian. The film will be introduced by Evan A. Liberman, Associate Professor of Film, Television, and Interactive Media at Cleveland State University. Tickets are available online.

Considered one of the earliest ethnographic documentary films, Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life follows a branch of the Bakhtiari tribe of Lurs in Persia as they and their herds make their seasonal journey to better pastures.

[Read more…]

Seraph Brass dances through musical travels in Rocky River (Nov. 11)

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by Stephanie Manning

Before Seraph Brass arrived in Ohio on November 11, the group’s fall touring season had taken them on the road to Missouri, Florida, New York, and even Peru. And at the Rocky River Chamber Music Society, they gave the audience a taste of the traveling life right from the first piece.

The “Prelude” from Edvard Greig’s Holberg Suite whisked listeners away to Norway, with a melody surely familiar to many. It was extra familiar to the brass quintet themselves, who launched into their opening number without sheet music. Playing memorized is part of the group’s trademark, and they smoothly alternated using music and no music throughout the evening. Either way, the wide-ranging program had those at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church spellbound.

Trumpet players Mary Elizabeth Bowden and Raquel Samayoa, horn player Layan Atieh, trombonist Lauren Casey-Clyde, and tuba player Robyn Black sounded equally comfortable in Romantic and contemporary repertoire, flipping between both with practiced ease. [Read more…]

DIARY, Thursday, November 21, 2024

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducts The Cleveland Orchestra, with violin soloist Stefan Jackiw (pictured). The program includes Carl Nielsen’s Overture to Maskarade, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto & Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 1.

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

R.I.P. BURTON FINE, 94

Longtime Boston Symphony principal viola Burton Fine, who trained as a violinist as well as a chemist and whose first job was with the government agency in Cleveland that became NASA, passed away on November 15 at the age of 94 at his home in Newton, Massachusetts.

The Violin Channel writes, “…when a position opened up in the second violin section of the Boston Symphony in 1963, he took the day off to practice and auditioned the very next day — and was ultimately offered the role. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra’s Beethoven Concerto Cycle performance featured pairing of rising star and mentor (Nov. 15)

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This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

By Daniel Hathaway

CLEVELAND, Ohio — For the third program in The Cleveland Orchestra’s Beethoven Piano Concerto Cycle, the pairing of 20-year-old Korean pianist Yunchan Lim with his mentor Minsoo Sohn was an astute programming decision.

Well-established names on the concert circuit — Orion Weiss, Sir Stephen Hough, and Garrick Ohlsson — had already filled the empty solo spots for the composer’s Triple Concerto and solo concertos 2, 3, and 4. But the choice of the youngest pianist ever to win the Van Cliburn Competition to close out the Cleveland series packed Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center on Friday evening, November 15, with a near-capacity audience teeming with enthusiastic young people.

[Read more…]

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