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Review: Canton Symphony & Chorus deliver transcendent Brahms German Requiem (Feb. 16)

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by Tom Wachunas

CSCIn celebration of its 30th Anniversary, the Canton Symphony Chorus joined the Canton Symphony Orchestra on February 16 for the Masterworks Series concert at Umstattd Hall. Augmented by the Malone University Chorus, the combined vocal ensemble of 125 members, conducted by Chorus Director Britt Cooper, gave a truly beautiful account of the first work on the program, Mozart’s brief motet, Ave verum corpus (Hail True Body). Hushed and ethereal, the performance was nonetheless an inspiring tone-setter for the more dramatically expansive Brahms German Requiem that followed, conducted by Gerhardt Zimmermann.

Unlike the traditional Latin Mass for the Dead, this requiem eschewed the blunt Biblical language of a wrathful God dispensing the fire and brimstone of the Last Judgment. [Read more…]

Preview: 360 Degrees of Sight + Sound — The Planetarium Project on February 25

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by Carlyn Kessler, special contributor

CMNH-PlanetariumOn February 25, the experimental spectacle “360 Degrees of Sight + Sound: The Planetarium Project” will be presented at 9:00 pm and 9:45 pm at the Nathan and Fannye Shafran Planetarium of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. This unique project, currently in its second season, combines the talents of students from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Cleveland Institute of Art, who collaborated to produce animated films with musical scores, which audience members will experience in a 3D format in the museum’s state-of-the-art planetarium.

“This is not commonly done,” remarked Steve Kohn, electronic music professor at the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM), who served as the musical supervisor on the project. “This is very special.” Indeed, the event creatively conjoins the three institutions in a colorful display of the interactive arts mecca that the community has become. As Kohn went on to say, “University Circle is a cultural jewel.”

In a recent conversation, Keith Fitch, head of CIM’s composition department, shed light on the original conception of the project. [Read more…]

“Sephardic Journey” takes Apollo’s Fire in a new direction

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by Daniel Hathaway

SORRELL-Jeannette“It seemed like this was the next challenge,” said Apollo’s Fire artistic director Jeannette Sorrell. “Our Celtic program in particular made me ready to tackle something new.”

That something new will reveal itself this week as Apollo’s Fire presents five performances of “Sephardic Journey: Wanderings of the Spanish Jews” beginning on Thursday, February 20 at Fairlawn Lutheran Church, with subsequent concerts at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights (February 21), The Temple-Tifereth Israel in Beachwood (February 22 & 25) and Rocky River Presbyterian Church (February 23). [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra releases 2014 Blossom Schedule

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CLEVELAND, February 16

TCO@BlossomThe Cleveland Orchestra has announced the 2014 Blossom Music Festival season, a total of 18 concerts between July 3 and August 31, including 15 by The Cleveland Orchestra, two Blossom Festival Band concerts, and one concert by the Blossom Festival Orchestra. The complete schedule follows.

* Denotes fireworks following the concert, weather permitting
** Blossom Debut *** Cleveland Orchestra Debut

Thursday, July 3, 2014, at 8:00 p.m.*
Friday, July 4, 2014, at 8:00 p.m.*
Blossom Festival Band
Loras John Schissel, conductor

A Salute to America
Music by Bernstein, Gershwin, and John Philip Sousa, with Tchaikovky’s “1812” Overture and fireworks, weather permitting. [Read more…]

News: Kalyn becomes Oberlin Conservatory Dean

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Kalyn-AndreaAndrea Kalyn has been named Dean of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, an appointment formally approved by the Oberlin Board of Trustees on February 11.

Kayln has served as an associate dean since 2005 and interim dean since David H. Stull’s departure last July. She becomes the 13th permanent chief administrator in the conservatory’s 149-year history.

Born in Canada, Kalyn studied piano at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory, and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Western Ontario and a PhD from the Eastman School of Music, all in musicology.

Review: Jinjoo Cho and HyunSoo Kim explore unusual violin/piano works for Arts Renaissance Tremont (Feb. 9)

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by Timothy Robson

Cho-&-KimIn its 23rd season, Arts Renaissance Tremont, based at Pilgrim Congregational Church, continues to offer an interesting and excellent variety of programs. The latest concert was by Jinjoo Cho, violin, and HyunSoo Kim, piano, on Sunday, February 9. The latest snowstorm had stopped by afternoon, and the cold sun shone brilliantly; thus, a large audience was in attendance for a stimulating program of less-often-played modern works.

Jinjoo Cho is a multi-prize winner in national and international competitions, with many solo recitals and concerto performances already in her relatively short career. After studying at the Curtis Institute of Music, she returned to study at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She now studies with Jaime Laredo. HyunSoo Kim is a CIM graduate and recently joined the CIM collaborative piano staff. Both are technically accomplished with strong musicality.

In brief spoken notes Jinjoo Cho described the program as consisting of “war sonatas”; each of the works, by Debussy, Janáček, Joan Tower, and Prokofiev, were composed during the various wars of the 20th and early 21st century. [Read more…]

CMA at Transformer Station — koto pioneer Miya Masaoka

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by Mike Telin

MASAOKA-MiyaIt’s difficult to know where to begin a conversation with Miya Masaoka. It isn’t because there is a shortage of interesting topics to discuss. On the contrary, Masaoka has built a fascinating career that combines Western experimental improvisation with the tradition of her instrument of choice, the koto.

Since founding the San Francisco Gagaku Society, Masaoka has introduced new ways of thinking about and performing on the koto which include improvisation and expanding the instrument through the use of computers, lasers, live sampling, and real time processing. As a composer, Masaoka’s compositions often include the sound and movement of insects, as well as the physiological responses of plants, the human brain, and her own body.

On Sunday, February 16 beginning at 7:30 pm, you can hear Miya Masaoka in performance as part of the CMA Concerts at Transformer Station series. [Read more…]

Oberlin Artist Recital Series: Imani Winds with Gilbert Kalish (February 9)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Imani2Downsizing seems to be one of the buzz concepts of our era, but the ever-game-for-a-challenge Imani Winds took the idea to a new level of miniaturization on Sunday afternoon in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel, when that excellent woodwind quintet, performing on the Artist Recital Series, impressed the sox off a good-sized audience with their ear-boggling performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in an arrangement by Jonathan Russell.

Well, OK, not the whole piece, but Russell gives the quintet a good twenty-minutes worth of Stravinsky’s score redeployed for flute (and piccolo), oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon, and it worked. In her introduction, oboist Toyin Spellman-Diaz noted that the audience would be able to hear inner details that had heretofore been “covered up by loud percussion and obnoxious brass — you know who you are!” she joked to the balconies where some of those blushing conservatory offenders were sure to be found. [Read more…]

Chagrin Falls Studio Orchestra: Jiayan Sun talks about Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto

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Pianist Jiayan Sun will play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Chagrin Falls Studio Orchestra, Stephen A. Eva conducting, on February 14 and 15 at Chagrin Valley Little Theater. Mike Telin spoke with Cleveland International Piano Competition finalist Jiayan Sun last summer in a video interview the day before he played the concerto at Severance Hall with The Cleveland Orchestra under Stefan Sanderling (August 9, 2013)

[youtube=http://youtu.be/2-SeCVWiksg]

Preview: Cleveland Orchestra — a conversation with guest conductor Marc Albrecht

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by Mike Telin

ALBRECHT-Marc“My Cleveland Orchestra debut, yes it’s very exciting for me,” conductor Marc Albrecht said during a recent telephone conversation. “And I think it’s an interesting program too.” Beginning on Thursday at 7:30 pm in Severance Hall, The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Marc Albrecht will present three performances featuring Mahler’s Blumine and Songs of a Wayfarer with mezzo-soprano Alice Coote*, as well as Brahms’s Piano Quartet arranged by Arnold Schoenberg.

Marc Albrecht was born into an artistic family in Hanover, Germany, although finding his own musical voice was always important to him. And it was the late Claudio Abbado who helped him do that. You can read about all of his professional accomplishments here, but let’s proceed to the conversation, because Marc Albrecht is fascinating. We reached him in Amsterdam and began by asking him about this weekend’s program.

Marc Albrecht: I’m very fond of Schoenberg’s arrangement of Brahms’s Quartet in g minor. I’ve known it for many years and conducted it several times. It’s a miracle what Schoenberg does with it. He knew it so well because he was a talented cellist and had played the original version several times. So he knew it backwards and forwards. Later in America, where he had immigrated to escape the Nazis, he was desperately in search of work and it was there that he started to write this so called ‘Symphony No. 5’. [Read more…]

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