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2011 Cleveland International Piano Competition begins July 27

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by Daniel Hathaway

Contestants 2009On Tuesday, July 26, twenty-seven young pianists will draw for positions in the 2011 Cleveland International Piano Competition, and begin a ten-day journey which — for the last four pianists left standing — will end with two days of final concerto rounds at Severance Hall with The Cleveland Orchestra followed by the crowning of winners.

The stakes are high: the top award, the Mixon First Prize, comes with $50,000 in cash, a New York debut recital at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, and two years of management services. Second, third and fourth prizes of $25,000, $15,000 and $10,000 will also be awarded at the end of the second Severance Hall round on Saturday, August 6, and there are a slew of boutique awards for excellence in the performance of Baroque, contemporary, American and Russian music, and the compositions of Beethoven, Chopin and Mozart. The audience gets to vote as well: an audience prize will be given to the popular favorite in the final round, and the junior jury chooses its own prize winner. [Read more…]

A conversation with composer Margi Griebling-Haigh

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by Mike Telin

Cleveland composer Margi Griebling-Haigh has written a new piece on commission from Cleveland Orchestra assistant principal bassoonist Barrick Stees. Sortilège will have its premiere on Mr. Stees concert, “Instrument of Enchantment: the Supernatural Bassoon” in Tucker Hall of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights on Friday, May 6 at 7:30 pm.

Ms. Griebling-Haigh comes from a family which boasts three generations of composers, including her father, her mother, her sister and her daughter.

A native of Akron, she began music study with her parents and before graduating from high school, had already won awards for her compositions from BMI and the National Federation of Music Clubs. An oboist, she took her Bachelor’s degree from Eastman, studying with Robert Sprenkle, and Master’s degree from the San Francisco Conservatory, studying with Marc Lifschey.

In addition to the commission from Barrick Stees, she has been asked to compose for other Cleveland Orchestra soloists, including principal hornist Richard King and the late principal oboist, John Mack. Other commissions have come from organist Karel Paukert, the Schenectady Symphony, the Greater Akron Music Association and the Cleveland area chamber ensemble Panorámicos.

Her daughter Gabrielle (Gabby) is following in the tradition. Currently training to be a classicist at Clare College, Cambridge, where she sings soprano in the Chapel Choir, her Symphony No. 1 was premiered recently by the Monterey Symphony Orchestra.

We spoke with Margi Griebling-Haigh by telephone to talk about her career as a composer, her remarkable family and about the new work she has written for Barrick Stees.

[Read more…]

Concert report: Cleveland Orchestra with Robert Walters at Oberlin (February 25)

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by Brittany Brahn

Brittany Brahn is an Oberlin student who participated in the Winter Term course in Digital Musical Journalism co-sponsored by ClevelandClassical.

Robert WaltersThe tradition of the Cleveland Orchestra performing at Oberlin College is a long and well-loved one, which began in 1919 only six months after the orchestra was first formed. Since that initial concert, the Cleveland Orchestra has performed at Oberlin 209 times through the college’s Artist Recital Series, which is incidentally one of the oldest continuing concert series in the United States. In addition to the Cleveland Orchestra, the Artist Recital Series has also brought musicians such as Joshua Bell, Yo-Yo Ma, Denyce Graves and Juan Diego Flóres to the campus, much to the delight of the students and residents of Oberlin.

The Cleveland Orchestra’s latest return to Oberlin was on the evening of Friday, February 25th in Finney Chapel under the direction of Russian conductor Andrey Boreyko. The program, Boreyko’s debut with the Cleveland Orchestra, showcased a refreshing array of Eastern European works that complemented each other well, including Stravinsky’s Divertimento from the ballet Le Baiser de la fée, Peteris Vasks’s English horn Concerto, and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major. The sweetness of the Divertimento provided an enjoyable juxtaposition to the full-bodied, fiery drama of the Symphony.

Vasks is a Latvian composer who is less familiar to Western audiences than Stravinsky or Prokofiev, yet his English horn concerto proved to be an ambitious and highly successful addition to the repertoire. By the time Vasks had written the piece in 1989, he had spent the majority of his compositional life overshadowed by the rigid policies of the Soviet Union. Two years prior to Latvia’s independence, the English horn concerto was commissioned by the American musician Thomas Stacy and the Stamford Chamber Orchestra. [Read more…]

Opera and scale (again)

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by Nicholas Jones

Today we went to the cineplex to watch the latest Met HD Live broadcast: there are five more this spring! Thank you, Peter Gelb! This one was Susan Graham and Placido Domingo in Gluck’s amazing opera, Iphigénie en Tauride, or Iphigenia in the land of the Scythians (my translation). Graham and Domingo both had colds — they called it a NYC epidemic — but they sounded pretty darn good.

For me, coincidentally, this opera, which Gluck adapted from a little-known Greek tragedy by Euripides, came on the heels of four wonderful lectures at Oberlin by Toronto classicist Victoria Wohl, about how strange Euripides’ plays are, and how that strangeness can clue us into their political and ideological messages.

This is a strange opera, to be sure. And I’d love to know what its messages about friendship, sibling love, revenge, and barbarianism might have meant in the court of Marie Antoinette.

Whatever it meant there, it was not sung in a hall like the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center. And that aspect of scale must have been part of what it meant.

In the Met, the singers’ voices have to be BIG. In the HD simulcasts, you get to meet the singers backstage. Here were Graham and Domingo, both obviously struggling with colds, talking to us and host Natalie Dessay, perky as always. Domingo almost sadly gestured to the microphone he was holding for the interview, and commented “we don’t get to use these onstage.” [Read more…]

An interview with Cleveland Orchestra English hornist Robert Walters

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by Mike Telin

Robert WaltersTo read Cleveland Orchestra solo English horn player Robert Walter’s resume, one could easily assume that he has not had a lot of time for anything other than music. Prior to joining the Orchestra in 2004, he served as solo English horn and oboe player with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Prior to those positions, Mr. Walters performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the American Ballet Theatre, the American Symphony Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He also was a frequent performer with James Levine and the MET Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. As a soloist, Mr. Walters has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Beijing Radio Symphony, the New York Chamber Soloists, and the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia.

The passing down of musical traditions to young players is something that brings him great joy. He is a faculty member at the Aspen Music Festival as well as professor of oboe and English horn at the Oberlin Conservatory. But when we telephoned Mr. Walters last week to talk about his upcoming performance of Latvian composer Peteris Vasks’ English horn concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Andrey Boreyko, we discovered that his artistic interests and talents extend far beyond the concert stage.

Mike Telin: How did you discover the Vasks concerto?

Robert Walters: Actually it was through Andrey Boreyko, who is conducting the concert. I was playing in Aspen a few summers ago where he was conducting. He asked me if I knew this concerto, at which point I didn’t. I heard some of it on the radio once, and I remember thinking that it was intriguing, so with his prompting, I did some research, and discovered that it has been recorded twice — which is interesting for an English horn concerto — but even more interesting is that it was recorded by the same person. [Read more…]

“Guitar Plus”: a conversation with composer Monica Houghton

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by Mike Telin

Monica Houghton’s Songs Without Words will be one of the featured works on Sunday, February 20, 2011 at 3:00 pm, when the Cleveland Composers Guild teams up with the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society for “Guitar Plus” (music for guitar and other instruments) at Christ Episcopal Church in Shaker Heights. We spoke with Monica Houghton by telephone.

Mike Telin: Is this your first work for “Guitar Plus”?

Monica Houghton: I have never written for the combination of guitar and flute before. I have written some pieces specifically for the guitarist Don Better, who I met in graduate school at CIM, and he is a colleague of mine now. I wrote some songs for soprano and guitar, as well as a solo piece for Don, which he has played quite a few times.

MT: How did Songs without Words come about?

MH. Don asked me to write a piece for him and a friend who played five string electric bass, but that project didn’t work out so well because the bassist did not read music. So we got in to this sort of never never land. I kept thinking that I would just play through the part and he could get it, but it just doesn’t work that way crossing between the classical world and the jazz world. It can be an interesting experience for both sides I would imagine. Anyway, I really liked the music, and the piece was based on a poem from the Chinese Tung Dynasty poet TuFu. He is one of the greatest poets of all time. So this was a poem that I liked called “New Moon”, and that was what I had based the piece on, I thought I didn’t want to let the piece go, so when this concert opportunity came up, I thought ‘oh well, I wonder if I just took the bass part and put it above the guitar part and messaged the music a little bit, I could make this a piece for flute and guitar?’, because for some reason, the sound of flute and guitar seemed to fit the poem. It is odd to think that you could turn a piece for electric bass and guitar into a piece for flute and guitar, that you could perform that translation without having major damage. But it seemed quite natural, and I was surprised. So I went with that, but then I saw the piece was a little short so I wrote two other pieces to go with it, which are also sort of riffs on TuFu poems. [Read more…]

Review: ‘The Turn of the Screw’ at Oberlin

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by Alison Kozol

Alison Kozol participated in the Oberlin Winter Term class in Digital Musical Journalism co-sponsored by ClevelandClassical.com and team-taught by CC correspondent and Oberlin English professor Nicholas Jones and CC staffers Mike Telin and Daniel Hathaway. Here, Ms. Kozol writes about the Thursday, February 3 opening performance of one of the two Winter Term operas, Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw.

A massive, beautiful paper-mache tree stood by itself in the corner of Finney Chapel’s stage last night as one of the few props used in Oberlin College’s production of The Turn of The Screw. The set design was sparse, but, like the tree, the cast and orchestra used minimalism to their advantage. Relying more on polished technique than ornamentation, The Turn of the Screw captivated its small audience by creating an eerie atmosphere that accurately captured the spirit of the story.

Such an eerie atmosphere is necessary for an opera like The Turn of the Screw, Benjamin Britten’s adaptation of Henry James’ novella of the same name. The story follows the unnamed Governess throughout her experience with the Bly mansion, a sprawling home teeming with ghosts, and Sara Casey, a fifth-year at Oberlin, did the character justice. Her transition from cheerful to weary to terrified set the tone for the entire performance, and her voice was flawless as it mimicked her tumultuous mood. Perhaps the most spell-binding moments, however, were when she was most flabbergasted by the supernatural around her and instead of singing, whimpered her disbelief. [Read more…]

Gilbert and Sullivan and Cole Porter

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by Nicholas Jones

Correspondent Nicholas Jones and CC.com staff Daniel Hathaway and Mike Telin have been leading an Oberlin Winter Term course in Digital Musical Journalism during the month of January. Here are Nick’s reflections on a recent performance at Lorain County Community College, tattled from his blog, “The World As Museum”.

We went to hear a cabaret show by a small touring group from the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players last night at the community college. They were performing a review called “I’ve got a Little Twist” (a witty take-off on “I’ve Got a Little List,” of course), which segued in and out of Broadway and G & S. Their take on it was that G & S were the real founders of Broadway musical theater, and they showed us nice parallels: maybe the best was the connection of the patter song (“I am the very model of a modern major-general” from Pirates of Penzance) with Broadway numbers like “Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little”, from Music Man. Here’s a video from the opening number of “Twist” that will give you a better sense of it.

[Read more…]

Harpist Jocelyn Chang, 59

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The community of Cleveland freelance musicians and advocates for new music lost a treasured colleague and friend on Friday, November 19, 2010 when harpist Jocelyn Chang passed away at the age of 59.

Jocelyn performed in many contexts with her husband, flutist and composer Michael Leese, and was a longtime member of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony. An obituary by Donald Rosenberg was published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on November 24. A memorial concert will be held in Waetjen Auditorium at Cleveland State University on Sunday, January 23, 2011 at 2:00 pm.

We invite Jocelyn’s many colleagues and friends to post a memory or a tribute by leaving a comment here (click on the link above). At Michael Leese’s request, memorial donations may be made to the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, c/o The Music Settlement, 11125 Magnolia Drive, Cleveland, OH 44106.

The following images were provided by Steve Eva from a photo shoot with the Chagrin Studio Orchestra at Christmas, 2008. The organizers of the memorial concert are creating a slideshow. If you would like to contribute an image, please see the comment below for details.

CityMusic Cleveland: an interview with violinist Chee-Yun

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by Mike Telin

Chee-YunCityMusic Cleveland opens its 2010-2011 season next Tuesday the 28th of September with six concerts devoted to the music of Beethoven under the direction of director James Gaffigan, who returns after a year’s absence.

These concerts also mark the CityMusic debut of the exuberant violinist Chee-Yun, who told us in a phone interview, “I think I have an ‘I am a student forever’ attitude”. Her love for learning and experiencing new things in life came across as we discussed her initial reluctance to perform Beethoven’s monumental concerto, as well as how teaching has made her a better performer. We also chatted about her guest appearance on the hit sit-com, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, a video of Piazzolla’s Oblivion that some viewers found to be a bit provocative for their tastes, and her upcoming debut with Chris Botti at New York’s legendary Jazz Club, The Blue Note.

Mike Telin: Have you worked with James Gaffigan before?

CY: No, this is my first time, but he is the main reason that my manager and I jumped at the opportunity to play with CityMusic. And the Beethoven is a piece that I want to play more, so this is a really good opportunity for me.

MT: I found an interview that you did for “All Things Strings” 10 years ago, and in it you said that you were not all that crazy about the concerto. What has changed in the past ten years?

[Read more…]

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