ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad
Ad

Archives for November 2024

Pianist Garrick Ohlsson, conductor Daniel Reith lead Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven concert (Nov. 9)

by

by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A relaxed understanding born of a long career helped pianist Garrick Ohlsson bring easy grace and Proto-Romantic sensibility to Beethoven’s Second and Fourth Piano Concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra.

The program on Saturday at Severance Music Center featured early and middle works, the second set of concerts in the Orchestra’s cycle of Beethoven piano concertos.

Despite its number, the Second Concerto is actually the composer’s first, begun in 1790. Ohlsson treated this early Beethoven work expressively, with sinuous rubato, keeping his rhythms precise, his touch light, and his rhetoric clear. Nothing, not even Beethoven’s many technical snares, seemed to faze him.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra’s Beethoven concerto cycle: a mini festival of virtuosity (Nov. 6)

by

by Peter Feher

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — There’s never been a better time to buy a couple of extra tickets to The Cleveland Orchestra.

Not one but four stellar soloists took the stage at Severance Music Center on Wednesday, Nov. 6 — representing about half of the star-studded lineup coming to Cleveland over the next two weeks. The big event of the Orchestra’s fall season, a complete cycle of Beethoven’s piano concertos, is set to feature a different headliner for almost every piece.

This wasn’t the original plan, but with music director Franz Welser-Möst undergoing medical treatment and unable to conduct — and the scheduled soloist for the entire cycle, Igor Levit, withdrawing as a result — the Orchestra had to adapt. The personnel changes were announced on Monday, Nov. 4, including associate conductor Daniel Reith’s stepping in to lead all the performances, which run through Nov. 17.

[Read more…]

DIARY, Thursday, November 14, 2024

by

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Apollo’s Fire begins its run of  “Hope and Solitude,” with countertenor Reginald Mobley (pictured), oboist Debra Nagy, and violinist Alan Choo performing music by Henry Purcell and J.S. Bach at 7:30 in Akron’s First United Methodist Church

And at 8 at Cleveland’s Calicchia Gallery, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project hosts Dani Dobkin & Matt Sargent, who are traveling in support of their new album, Bend.

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

DEPARTURES:

“Born in 1925 in Warren, Ohio, Walfrid Kujala served as flute and piccolo of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1954 until 2001 and was a professor of flute at the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music from 1962 to 2012.” He passed away at the age of 99. Read a Bienen School obituary here.

REINVENTIONS:

In today’s print edition of The New York Times, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim writes, “When the soprano Lucy Shelton opened a recital at Merkin Hall in 2019 with Adieu à la vie, a song by Rossini, she was about to turn 75. And though she was not bidding farewell to life as the song’s title suggests, she felt she was done with performing. [Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, November 13, 2024

by

by Stephanie Manning

HAPPENING TODAY:

Two options from local conservatories round out this evening at 7:30.

For the CIM Insiders Series, violinist Ilya Kaler and pianist Michelle Bushkova perform works by Szymanowski, Ravel, and Enescu in Mixon Hall. And the Oberlin Historical Performance Department presents a faculty concert from violinist Edwin Huizinga, cellist Rebecca Landell, and fortepianist David Breitman (pictured).

Plus, at 12:00 noon, organist Florence Mustric performs the music of Charles-Marie Widor for Music Near the Market.

For more information, visit our Concert Listings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Changes continue for The Cleveland Orchestra’s concerts at Severance. Stepping in for Franz Welser-Möst, conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali will make his Orchestra debut next week for the performances on November 21, 22, and 23.

He’ll lead a completely new program: Carl Nielsen’s Overture to Maskarade, Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1, and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with violinist Stefan Jackiw. Learn more here.

Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde,” featuring tenor Limmie Pulliam and baritone Iurii Samoilov, will now be performed in the 2025-26 season.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Daniel Hathaway

French organist and composer Louis-Lefébure-Wély was born on this date in Paris in 1817. [Read more…]

CIM Opera Theater to stage Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’étoile

by

by Mike Telin

“It’s an incredibly charming work and unabashedly silly,” stage director JJ Hudson said about CIM’s forthcoming production of Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’étoile. “There’s so much vitality and it’s full of great, catchy melodies.”

On Saturday, November 16 at 7:00 pm, CIM Opera Theater will present Chabrier’s comic opera at Westfield Studio Theatre in Playhouse Square, sung in French with English dialogue. Harry Davidson conducts the CIM Orchestra. The production will be repeated on Sunday at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

Unabashedly silly? Here’s what happens. [Read more…]

DIARY, Tuesday, November 12, 2024

by

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Three interesting concerts all begin tonight at 7:30.

  • Cuarteto Casals joins the Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s 75th anniversary celebration tonight at The Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church,
  • Garrick Ohlsson continues The Cleveland Orchestra’s Beethoven Piano Cycle with the Second & Fourth Concertos,
  • Percussion professor Ross Karre and guest violinist Emily Cornelius play Stravinsky’s Histoire du soldat on a program that includes works by Kevin Day, Sophie Dupuis and Arvo Pärt in Stull Recital Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory.

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

INTERESTING READ:

In a Guardian article, Jim Farber asks “was Nicky Hopkins, who played on over 250 albums, the greatest unsung pianist ever? “He helped shape classic songs by the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Beatles but his influence on music has been largely ignored. [Read more…]

DIARY: Monday, November 11, 2024

by

by Stephanie Manning

HAPPENING TODAY:

Enjoy some brass quintet repertoire tonight at 7:30 pm, when the Rocky River Chamber Music Society presents Seraph Brass. The free concert from the all-female group (pictured) takes place at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church. 

Click here for more information and the livestream link, and here to read our website’s interview with horn player Layan Atieh.

To see what else is in store for this week, visit our Concert Listings.

GRAMMYS HONOR CLEVELANDERS:

The Grammy nominations are out, and with them comes some well-deserved celebrations for people and groups with ties to Northeast Ohio. We’ll compile a complete list soon, but here are the big headlines.

Cleveland producers Erika Brenner and Elaine Martone are both nominated for Producer of the Year, Classical. Martone’s credits this year include four albums with Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra, while Brenner worked on two albums from Apollo’s Fire.

Handel: Israel in Egypt, which Brenner produced, is also up for Best Choral Performance. The nomination covers Apollo’s Fire, conductor Jeannette Sorrell, soloists Margaret Carpenter Haigh, Daniel Moody, Molly Netter, Jacob Perry, & Edward Vogel, and Apollo’s Singers.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Mahoning Matters reports that music director Sergey Bogza will leave the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra, citing “personal, health, and family reasons.” Bogza leaves the group after only four months, having assumed the post on July 1. Guest conductors Dean Buck and Edward Leonard will lead the YSO performances through the end of the year.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Daniel Hathaway

Never to be forgotten, “The Great War” (to end all wars) ended rather messily with the signing of an armistice at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, having “claimed the lives of 116,000 Americans, through combat, disease and other causes, and killed millions more people around the world.” Read an article in The Washington Post here. The U.S. began marking Veterans Day in 1954, now called Memorial Day.

Never a better opportunity to hear (or re-hear) Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, built around WWI war poetry by Wilfrid Owen. Britten himself conducted this live television performance in August, 1964. The work was written for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral (the old building had been destroyed during German bombing in WWII), and received its first performance on May 30, 1962. Let’s leave it at that.

DIARY, Weekend, November 9-10, 2024

by

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND: 

On Saturday, Snowbelt Symphony celebrates America (4 pm, New Promise Church in Chardon), No Exit presents the Median Arts Ensemble (7 pm in Kulas Hall at Baldwin Wallace), BW hosts an Alumni Chamber Music Recital (7 pm in Gamble Auditorium), Music at Bath presents the 7-piece ensemble Umojah Nation Reggae (7 pm at Bath Church in Akron), the Cleveland Orchestra plays Beethoven’s piano concertos No. 2 & 4 with Garrick Ohlsson (pictured, 8 pm in Severance Music Center), and Oberlin Opera continues its run of Cendrillon (8 pm in Hall Auditorium).

On Sunday, Oberlin Opera concludes its run of Cendrillon (2 pm in Hall Auditorium), the Gruca White Ensemble “expands the boundaries of the classical experience” (2 pm at Wadsworth Public Library), Eric Benjamin leads the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra with violin soloist Michael Ferri (3 pm at Maltz PAC), the Oberlin Opera continues its run of Cendrillon (8 pm in Hall Auditorium), the Dana Opera Ensemble presents scenes (3 pm at the McDonough Museum in Youngstown), Good Company hosts composer Joel Thompson (4 pm, Lakewood Presbyterian Church), Lakeland Civic Orchestra spotlights Nicholas Jacques in Elgar’s Cello Concert (4 pm, Lakeland Community College, Kirtland), and the BW New Music Series presents new works by composition majors (7 pm in Gamble Auditorium).

For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings. [Read more…]

Diary, Thursday, November 8, 20024

by

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY: 

Seven events to choose from today.

No Exit Presents the Meridian Arts Ensemble (7 pm at the Bop Stop), the BW Symphonic Wind Ensemble plays at 7 (Gamble Auditorium), the Marian Consort (pictured) from Norwich, England sings “a program of sumptuous Renaissance polyphony from some of Scotland’s few surviving sixteenth-century manuscripts” (7:30 at St. John’s Cathedral).

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society hosts João Luiz (7:30 at the Maltz PAC), Carolyn Kuan leads the CIM Orchestra and soloist Natalie Brennecke in Penderecki’s Viola Concerto (7:30 at Severance Music Center), New York Philharmonic principal clarinet Anthony McGill joins Timothy Weiss and the Oberin Sinfonietta in Warner Concert Hall, and across Tappan Square, Oberlin Opera Theater presents the second of four performances of Jules Massenet’s Cendrillon (8 pm Hall Auditorium).

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

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1890, Belgian-born French composer César Franck died in Paris, his demise partially attributed to the after effects of injuries he sustained when a cab he was riding in collided with a horse-drawn trolley. [Read more…]

Cuarteto Casals returns to Cleveland Chamber Music Society

by

by Mike Telin

Founded in 1997 at the Escuela Reina Sofía in Madrid, Cuarteto Casals quickly garnered international attention by winning first prize at the London International String Quartet Competition and the International Brahms Competition. The Quartet is also the recipient of a prize from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust.

On Tuesday, November 12 at 7:30 pm at The Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church, Cuarteto Casals — violinists Abel Tomàs and Vera Martínez, violist Cristina Cordero, and cellist Arneau Tomàs —  will return to the Cleveland Chamber Music Society stage with a program that features works by Mozart, Gubaidulina, and Brahms. Tickets are  available online.

I caught up with Cristina Cordero and Arneau Tomàs by Zoom in California, where the Quartet was about to begin a U.S. tour. I began our lively conversation by asking for their thoughts on Mozart’s String Quartet in D, “Hoffmeister.”

[Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us