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Archives for March 2025

Suburban Symphony Orchestra celebrates 70 years (Mar. 16)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Northeast Ohio is home to an astounding number of community orchestras and choruses, many with proud histories that go back decades. To attend a concert by such a plucky band is to experience the excitement and joy of the performers, and to see their seriousness of purpose realized.

On Sunday, March 16 in Mandel Hall at Severance Music Center, the Suburban Symphony celebrated its 70th anniversary. Under the direction of music director Domenico Boyagian, they did so in style with performances of Sibelius’ Karelia Suite and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (“Choral”).

The Orchestra was joined onstage by two other longstanding musical organizations: the Western Reserve Chorale, (David Gilson, artistic director) and the West Shore Chorale (Michael Lisi, artistic director). All told, there were around 240 smiling faces gathered onstage.

[Read more…]

DIARY, Tuesday, March 25, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, violinist Amos Fayette and pianist Halida Dinova will play music by Antonín Dvořák, Camille Saint-Saëns, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Maurice Ravel, Frédéric Chopin, and César Franck in a free recital in Drinko Hall at Cleveland State University.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Tuesday Musical has announced the 26 Ohio music majors who have won a total of $41,050 in the Akron organization’s 69th Scholarship Competition. “Nearly 130 applicants from 12 schools applied to compete this year for 29 scholarships ranging from $750 to $2,000 each.” See the list of winners here.

The First- and Second-place winners in the performance categories will be invited to compete again in the Final Round and Winners Concert on Sunday, May 4, at 2:30 in The University of Akron’s Guzzetta Recital Hall.

The Violin Channel reports that “the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes has issued a statement discussing his mixed feelings about performing in the United States in the current political climate. Andsnes has just embarked on an American tour that includes concert appearances in Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, and Cleveland, among other stops. [Read more…]

Oblivion Project brings tango to CMA

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by Max Newman

Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla may have passed away over thirty years ago, but his contributions to the tango music genre are truly eternal.

“Even in his sweetest melodies, there are things that are powerful,” said Derek Snyder, the self-described “de-facto leader” of the Oblivion Project, a musical group that has been performing and exploring the works of Piazzolla for over twenty years.

The project will take the stage at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on Friday, March 28 at 7:30 pm. Tickets available online. I was lucky to get to speak to both Snyder and Malena Dayen, the project’s vocalist, over the phone prior to the performance.

[Read more…]

Martha Redbone Hears Her Musical Call

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by Stephanie Manning

Reposted with the permission of Oberlin Conservatory

“If it’s meant to happen, the music will find you.” That’s how Martha Redbone sees it. And it wasn’t until she was in college studying illustration in the late ’80s, that the music found her for good.

Back then, the advent of the first Mac was rapidly changing the art world. “As an illustrator who loved painting and drawing people, that digital world was not for me,” she said. Feeling torn, she turned to music as a creative outlet, starting as a background vocalist before progressing into a career as a lead singer. Together with her songwriting partner (and later life partner) the pianist Aaron Whitby, she began to write music that had stories to tell.

“ There was a connection and a resonance that I got from singing, and it gave me a sense of peace,” she says. “I’ll always be an artist, I’ll always be an illustrator. But the music is what ended up calling me, and I just listened to that call.”

[Read more…]

DIARY, Monday, March 24, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

On Sunday, The Cleveland Orchestra announced details of its 2025-2026 season, the 24th to be led by music director Franz Welser-Möst. Subscriptions are now on sale, and single tickets will be available on August 14. Click here for an extensive press release and week-by week details.

The Cleveland Institute of Music will offer “The Chamber Music Experience @ CIM” from June 23-27, a new, five-day enrichment program for adult musicians. “One need not be a professional musician to take this wonderful art form seriously,” said Scott Harrison, CIM’s Executive Vice President & Provost. Click here for details.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Jarrett Hoffman

On this date in 1721, J.S. Bach dedicated his Six Concerts à plusieurs instruments to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt. That set of concerti grossi has since become known as the Brandenburg Concertos, hailed as some of the greatest works of the Baroque era. [Read more…]

DIARY, Weekend, March 21-23, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Friday, Trobár presents “Mothers and Sisters of the Veil,” CityMusic plays at East Mount Zion Baptist Church, CIM features faculty performers in “Ravel at 150,” and CUSP hosts the Tendrils Bassoon Trio.

On Saturday, No Exit Presents Patchwork with Anika Kildegaard, Cleveland Repertory Orchestra plays Chamber Music masterpieces, Trobár repeats Friday’s program at St. James, Lakewood, Canton Symphony features pianist Reed Tetzloff, Firelands Symphony & Chorale perform Beethoven’s 9th in Huron, CityMusic stops in at St. Stanislaus, & The Cleveland Orchestra plays Tchaikovsky with Yuja Wang.

On Sunday, Music from the Western Reserve hosts Les Délices in “The Poet & the Prodigy,” CityMusic performs in Rocky River, and Yuja Wang and The Cleveland Orchestra end the weekend on their home turf.

INTERESTING READ:

In a preview interview about part two of her Martha Redbone Roots Project at Oberlin, the vocalist (pictured above), who was raised in rural Kentucky and New York City, told Stephanie Manning, “ We play gospel music, we play blues, ballads, mountain hollers, we sing poetry from William Blake — we do all kinds of things.” Redbone and pianist Aaron Whitby, joined by violinist Charlie Burnham and bassist Fred Cash, Jr., will bring their cross-disciplinary performance to Oberlin on April 6 as part of the Artist Recital Series. Read the article here. [Read more…]

No Exit: Works by Greg D’Alessio at Trinity Cathedral (Mar. 13)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

In a program that was partly retrospective and partly world premiere, works by Greg D’Alessio compelled rapt attention at Trinity Cathedral on Thursday, March 13. And the performances by No Exit sparkled.

D’Alessio, who teaches at Cleveland State University, makes frequent use of electronic sounds, either in isolation, or in combination with traditional instruments — echoes of Mario Davidovsky, perhaps, his teacher at Columbia. Film is also a favorite medium, affording flights of imagination both visual and auditory.

The opening work was the video, A Brief Word from the Present Moment (2025). Moving images and a hyperactive soundtrack combined for what the composer called, “a kind of hallucinatory newscast,” commenting with wide-angled perspective on recent and historical events. An AI-manipulated  projection of No Exit Artistic Director Tim Beyer’s talking head narrated, as ancient scenery, medieval paintings, and the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, paraded past. Combined with frantic music, the effect was unnerving, but partly nostalgic, too — like watching 1980s MTV.

[Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra Continues its 15th Anniversary with Covenant Concert (Mar. 1)

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by Daniel  Hathaway

When BlueWater Chamber Orchestra made its debut at the Breen Center on September  12, 2010, its founder and conductor Carlton Woods introduced the new ensemble with an ambitious program of works that included Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, Howard Hanson’s Serenade for Flute, Harp and Strings, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Romance in F for violin and orchestra, Edward Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, and Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera’s Variaciones Concertantes.

In a review of that performance, I wrote

The orchestral showpiece of the afternoon was Ginastera’s Concert Variations, described by Woods as “the South American Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.” Beginning with Kent Collier’s big cello solo accompanied by harpist Jody Guinn, the work showcased the fine solo talents of violist Laura Shuster, clarinetist Alix Reinhardt, concertmaster Kenneth Johnston, hornist Ken Wadenpfuhl and bassist Ann Gilbert, as well as the fine ensemble acumen of the rest of the orchestra.

[Read more…]

DIARY, Thursday, March 20, 2025

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, pianist Roman Rabinovich plays Felix Mendelssohn’s Concerto No. 1 with CityMusic Cleveland in the first stop on its March Orchestra Series. It’s free at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Pianist, conductor, pedagogue and lecturer Sir András Schiff announced in a statement through his agent on Wednesday that he has cancelled his concerts in the U.S. for the 2025-2026 season “in response to political changes in the United States.” The cancelled concerts include a recital tour scheduled for October 2025 and orchestral engagements with the Philadelphia Orchestra and New York Philharmonic, scheduled for May 2026.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Overshadowing the birth of Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter on this date in 1915, and the 1948 duel on that date between CBS and NBC to broadcast the first symphony orchestra concert (CBS won by 90 minutes with a Philadelphia Orchestra program, and NBC was the runner up with a Toscanini-led NBC Symphony performance), German composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach in 1685. [Read more…]

Guitarist Marko Topchii cheerfully breaks the rules at CCGS (Mar. 8)

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by Stephanie Manning

Spend a few minutes with Marko Topchii, and you’ll know he’s a performer that likes to bend convention. The guitarist took the stage at the Maltz Performing Arts Center on March 8 wearing a baby blue suit jacket over a graphic tee, before promptly announcing that he was adding another piece to the program. Instead of kicking things off with Frederic Hand’s Undercurrents, his first selection was a brief, reflective work called Ground, written by his mother.

Speaking from the stage with commentary that was both personable and concise, Topchii charmingly contextualized the music on his extensive program. Undercurrents, which he got to shortly after his opening shakeup, was the commissioned work for the Guitar Foundation of America’s 2023 Competition — an event where Topchii came out on top with the grand prize.

Thanks to his win, the Ukrainian guitarist has been touring the U.S. almost nonstop since September, with two months left to go. But at his visit to the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, his relaxed speaking and focused performance belied the inevitable stressors of that schedule. [Read more…]

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