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CD Review—
Yolanda Kondonassis:
FIVE MINUTES for Earth 

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by Nicolette Cheauré

The closing line in the description of Yolanda Kondonassis’ latest CD FIVE MINUTES for Earth is “What is at stake…is only everything we have.” With a line like that, one can reflect on the consequences of their actions, which are often irreversible when applied to such imperative matters like climate change and Earth conservation. A labor-of-love project that commissioned fifteen composers to write for solo harp, this album — released by Azica Records on April 1 — cherishes, urges to protect, and aims to preserve the planet.

Several tracks depict nature or natural disasters, starting with Takuma Itoh’s Kohola Sings (Humpback Whales), Michael Daugherty’s Hear the Dust Blow, Chen Yi’s Dark Mountains, and Aaron Jay Kernis’ On Hearing Nightbirds at Dusk.

[Read more…]

Splendid Sibelius, Stratospheric Tchaikovsky from the Canton Symphony (June 25)

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by Tom Wachunas

“Music begins where the possibilities of language end.” —Sibelius

The first selection on the June 25 “Triumphant Tchaikovsky” program from the Canton Symphony Orchestra (CSO) was Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 3 in C Major.

With this work, premiered in 1907, Sibelius offered a bold departure from the explosive emotionalism so prevalent in late-Romantic era music. This symphony was a renewed embrace of Classicism’s purity of form and melody, and one that, oddly enough, left many initial audiences of the day somewhat bewildered. [Read more…]

CD Review: Margaret Brouwer Reactions 

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by Nicolette Cheauré

Margaret Brouwer’s latest album, Reactions: Songs and Chamber Music, released in April of this year, is an exploration of shared humanity, connection, love, and responses to universal life experiences.

Through a mix of instrumental and vocal chamber music featuring Sarah Beaty (mezzo-soprano), Brian Skoog (tenor), Mari Sato (violin and narration), Eliesha Nelson (viola), and Shuai Wang (piano), Brouwer offers a study of the range of human emotion. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland 2022 —
“The Revelry We Need”

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by Donald Rosenberg

This essay was written as an overview of ChamberFest’s tenth season. It is reposted with the permission of the author and ChamberFest Cleveland.

If you’re reading these words, you don’t have to be convinced that chamber music is a gift — anytime, anywhere. But we should be especially grateful this year, when we have cravings to connect (reconnect?) on so many levels. The pandemic has continued to disrupt our lives. A senseless war has placed the world at risk. So why chamber music? And why now? [Read more…]

Canton Symphony: New Music of the Spheres (May 22)

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by Tom Wachunas

A particularly gratifying take-away from the May 22 Canton Symphony Orchestra MasterWorks program at Umstattd Hall was that one need not be in an actual rocket ship to experience the beauties and mysteries of the cosmos.

As this concert so wondrously demonstrated, an orchestra as sublime as the CSO is itself a carefully constructed mode of transport. Call it a well-traveled vessel, amply fueled by a composer’s art, with performance flight plans navigated by the always sure hand of the conductor at the helm, Gerhardt Zimmermann. [Read more…]

A Magnificent Feast from the Canton Symphony (Apr. 30)

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by Tom Wachunas

Talk about perfect timing. In this abysmal era so saturated with our blood and tears, along comes the Canton Symphony Orchestra (CSO) with its inspiring April 30 concert, called Music For Humanity, presenting a lavish feast to feed yearning souls.

The first half of the evening featured two works conducted by the vivacious associate conductor Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz, beginning with Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No.1. Composed in 1986 by Joan Tower, the work was inspired by Aaron Copland’s iconic fanfare and employed the same instrumentation of brass and percussion.

Tower dedicated this surprisingly brief work to “women who take risks and are adventurous.” Adventurous to be sure. While the opening theme is a subtle echo of Copland’s, the CSO brass was remarkably bright, crisp and crackling in its relentless morphing of the motif into quick, layered variations, both delicate and discordant, robustly spiced with startling bursts of timpani. [Read more…]

The Chopin Whisperer

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Oberlin professor Dang Thai Son conquered one of the world’s most prestigious piano competitions. Now his students are doing the same.

by Erich Burnett, Special to ClevelandClassical.com

Oberlin piano professor Dang Thai Son (left) is a legend at the Chopin Competition. Dang’s students, including second-year piano major JJ Bui, are establishing legends of their own.

People who know about piano tend to know about Dang Thai Son.

Widely acclaimed for his interpretations of Chopin, the Oberlin Conservatory professor saw his illustrious career take flight in 1980 when he won first prize at the 10th Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland—one of the world’s most revered and most rigorous musical competitions. He has devoted the four decades since to performing and teaching around the world, earning accolades everywhere he goes.

Today, Dang’s students are following in the master’s footsteps in almost unbelievable ways. [Read more…]

A Healing Return to the Stage for the Canton Symphony Orchestra

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by Tom Wachunas

Reasons to be cheerful: they’re back! The May 23 concert by the Canton Symphony Orchestra marked the first time in more than a year that the ensemble has performed live at Umstattd Performing Arts Hall. This occasion was certainly an important step on the road back to cultural “normalcy” as we recover from the dreadful pandemic shutdown.

For a May 21 article by Ed Balint in The Repository (Canton’s daily newspaper), CSO president and CEO Michelle Charles said of the concert, “That’s what we do, that’s what we love and that’s why we exist, to perform music live. You do take for granted how readily available (classical music) is until it’s not. So I think it’s going to be very emotional.” [Read more…]

Has the Pandemic Changed the Definition of Live Music?

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by Max Shain

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the shape of the live music industry, impacting musicians, audiences, curators, managers, venue owners, festival directors, and recording engineers. Not only have revenue streams shifted, but it has caused many to rethink their definition of live music.

I spoke with six people from different sectors of the music industry to find out how their perception and experience of live music — as well as their expectations for its future — have changed over the past year. I also spoke to a few of my friends who served as proxy “Jane and Joe” audience members.

[Read more…]

Local 4 “Tuning In,” a conversation with composer & pianist Eric Charnofsky

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by Nicolette Cheauré

A concert program comprised entirely of piano quintets is fairly uncommon, but on Thursday, December 17th at 7:00 pm at the Steinway Gallery you can hear three such pieces on the same program, as part of the Local 4 Music Fund’s “Tuning In” virtual concert series. You can hear piano quintets by Shostakovich and Amy Beach, performed by violinists Jennifer Walvoord and Diana Pepelea-Vardi, violist Esther Nahm, cellist Derek Snyder, and pianist Eric Charnofsky. The concert will also feature Charnofsky’s own composition, 5 by 5.

The piece was commissioned for and premiered by the Los Angeles-based group Pacific Serenades, and partly modeled off of Meditations on a Suicide, a film score Charnofsky composed in 1989. The work hasn’t been performed since 2011, “So this is bringing it back nine years later,” Charnofsky said during a recent Zoom interview. Specializing in premiering new works, Pacific Serenades highlighted a composer from the area at every concert, and their only requirement was to “compose something that is of lasting beauty.” In 5 by 5, commission number 101, Charnofsky utilized the compositional freedom he was granted. The title refers to the instrumentation and number of movements. Each — Intrada, Chaconne, Tarantella, Meditation and Postscript — features a different instrument and a specifically chosen interval, bouncing between celebration, resonance, quirkiness, and thoughtfulness. [Read more…]

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