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Preview: Arts Renaissance Tremont: Men Who Don’t Bite (bassoon quartet)

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by Mike Telin

HavingSTEES-Barrick your instrument of choice referred to as the clown of the orchestra is a burden bassoonists around the world have to bear every day. Many players find this label to be an unfair assessment that does not begin to represent the important role their instrument plays in the orchestral canon — what would the opening of Rite of Spring sound like had it been written for tenor saxophone? And in order to debunk the label, many bassoonists have formed quartets and work tirelessly to promote the instrument’s many lyrical qualities.

“We’re just trying to play music that shows the bassoon as a multi-faceted, expressive instrument,” says Cleveland Orchestra assistant principal bassoonist Barrick Stees. Following in the footsteps of esteemed ensembles such as the Bubonic Bassoon Quartet and Bassoon Brothers, Stees will be joined by bassoon mates Eric Stromberg (University of Kansas), Jonathan Sherwin (The Cleveland Orchestra) and George Sakakeeny (Oberlin Conservatory) when Men Who Don’t Bite (Bassoon Quartet) perform a concert on Sunday, February 17 beginning at 3:00 pm in Pilgrim Congregational Church as part of the Arts Renaissance Tremont series. [Read more…]

Review: VIVA! & Gala at CMA (January 30) Chanticleer: stunning concert in a spectacular space

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 by Daniel Hathaway

InCHANTICLEER 1978, when Louis Botto founded Chanticleer with nine singers in San Francisco, the idea was to perform Medieval and Renaissance music using the male voices for which that repertory had been written. Thirty-five years later, the group numbers twelve, countertenors and male sopranos have been added to extend its range, and Chanticleer — named for the clear-voiced rooster in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales — has expanded its repertory and inspired a whole modern renaissance of composition for a cappella voices. That the group now subtitles itself “an orchestra of voices” isn’t just marketing hype. Male choral singing any more accomplished than this would be difficult to imagine.

On Wednesday evening, Chanticleer sang its program, “The Siren’s Call” in the new Ames Family Atrium of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the first of several VIVA! & Gala performing arts series events to make use of that amazing space. [Read more…]

Review: CCMS: Steven Isserlis & Kirill Gerstein at Plymouth Church (January 29)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Isserlis-GersteinChamber music recitals all too often follow the Chinese menu approach — one piece from Column A, one from Column B… Not so with the program the British cellist Steven Isserlis and Russian-born pianist Kirill Gerstein are touring with this month, which is fascinating for its choices and clever in its ordering of pieces. And this pair of musicians, who got together by accident but seem perfectly suited for one another, put it across brilliantly to the large Cleveland Chamber Music Society audience at Plymouth Church on Monday evening, an intergenerational crowd infused with young cellists, pianists and chamber musicians.

Here was the ground plan: both of Brahms’s cello sonatas, early and late, introduced by short pieces by Bartók and Busoni based on folk music and separated by two of Liszt’s late cello arrangements of his earlier songs. Liszt the revolutionary and Brahms the conservative didn’t get along at all during their lifetimes, but seemed as happily at ease with their proximity here as did Gerstein’s high-tech tablet computer (no page turner needed!) and Isserlis’s retro, gut-wound cello strings.  [Read more…]

Preview: Canada’s Sultans of String to play at Nighttown on January 31

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by Mike Telin

KnownSultans-of-String as “Canada’s ambassadors of musical diversity”, the Sultans of String make a return visit to Cleveland on Thursday, January 31 beginning at 8:00 pm at Nighttown. The Sultan’s blend of Spanish Flamenco, Arabic folk, Cuban rhythms, and French Manouche Gypsy-jazz have earned them a 2010 Juno Award nomination as well as being named the World Group of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards (2012). The group has also been nominated for the 2013 for World Group of the Year at the 2013 SiriusXM Canadian Indie Awards, and on February 10, bandleader and violinist Chris McKhool will be awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for his work in building community, and for his contributions to Canada.

We spoke to violinist and bandleader Chris McKhool by telephone and began by asking him what audiences can expect at their Nighttown show. [Read more…]

CD Review: New live recordings: Mitsuko Uchida in Mozart with The Cleveland Orchestra & New Year’s with FWM and the Vienna Philharmonic

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by Daniel Hathaway

TheUchida Mozart second in Dame Mitsuko Uchida’s new cycle of Mozart concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra features live performances of Nos. 9 and 21 recorded last April 5-7 in Severance Hall (the first recording in the series, including concertos Nos. 20 and 17 won a 2011 Grammy Award for best classical performance).

In his review of one of those live performances last season for this publication, Nicholas Jones wrote, “Sensitive and confident, utterly secure in passage work, energetic and lyrical by turns, she packed these familiar concertos with beauties, pleasures and surprises … Uchida’s rapport with the orchestra shone through the performances, which she conducted from the keyboard. Her style was part of the music’s rhythmic energy — playing a phrase, shooting up from the piano bench, her hands a-flutter as if they were finding notes in space in the active passages or, in the sombre parts, turned palm upwards as if imploring the gods (or the musicians?)”  [Read more…]

Review: Canton Symphony and Andre Watts: Burnin’ down the house (January 26)

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by Tom Wachunas

ViveWATTS-Andre le Français was the theme for the January 26 concert by the Canton Symphony Orchestra at Umstattd Hall, featuring works by Debussy, Ravel, Franck and Saint-Saëns. Maybe a more apropos title for the evening would have been Vive le Watts, as in the eminent pianist, André Watts. His return to Canton (the last being in 2010) begins a three-year CSO residency. The 2014-15 season promises to be especially momentous, when he will perform all of Beethoven’s piano concertos with Maestro Gerhardt Zimmermann conducting.

In some ways, the concert brought to mind a twist on the old adage, “a watched pot never boils.” For programmatically, this watched pot, so to speak, did finally bubble over, and explosively so, though only after a long, lingering simmer. [Read more…]

Review: Roberta Flack with the CIM Orchestra: Set the Night to Music at Severance Hall (January 26)

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by Mike Telin

When Flack-Robertathe incomparable Roberta Flack entered Howard University on a full music scholarship at the age of 15, her aspirations were to become a concert pianist. “The romantics are my guys” she told ClevelandClassical.com during a recent interview. “Chopin, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt and Rachmaninoff. I love all of them, they are all heavy on the melody.” Although it would be her voice rather then the piano that lead to stardom, on Saturday, January 26 in Severance Hall Ms. Flack proved time and again that like the romantics, she knows how to shape a melody when she joined Carl Topilow and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra in a benefit concert titled Set the Night to Music.

Ms. Flack, who is well-known for her narrative skills as a singer as well as her purity of tone, possesses a voice that is timeless. Now in her early 70’s, she is still capable of moving from a whisper to a full-bodied sound seemingly without effort. And, Ms. Flack is one classy entertainer as well. For one hour she, her top-notch back-up band and the talented CIM Orchestra enthralled a capacity audience with stories and song. [Read more…]

Review: CMA VIVA! & Gala: A brilliant realization of King Lear by Contemporary Legend Theatre of Taiwan (January 25)

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by Timothy Robson

FridayCLT-King-Lear evening’s production by the Contemporary Legend Theatre of Taiwan of King Lear, based on Shakespeare’s play, will be considered one of the highlights of this season. Shakespeare’s tragedy of falsehood, humiliation, madness and redemption through love was adapted, directed and performed by Wu Hsing-kuo, artistic director of Contemporary Legend Theatre. Mr. Wu has performed in theater, movies and television. American opera goers saw him in 2006 in the role of Yin-Yang Master in Tan Dun’s The First Emperor at the Metropolitan Opera. The performance was accompanied by an orchestra of nine musicians on traditional Chinese classical instruments, which were amplified. The performance also included pre-recorded sounds that were mixed into the live music. Wu Hsing-kuo was not himself amplified. The music composer was Lee Yi-Chin, and the vocal composer was Lee Men.

The performance, part of the Cleveland Museum of Art VIVA! & Gala series, was originally scheduled for the Gartner Auditorium at the museum, but was moved to the Breen Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland’s Ohio City area. And for good reason: the production has extensive lighting and theatrical effects which would have been impossible in the museum auditorium. [Read more…]

Feature: Cleveland Orchestra initiatives are paying off: a look behind its report of record ticket sales

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by Mike Telin

WhileTCO Fleck symphony orchestras here and abroad have been gazing deeply into their navels to find ways to fill their seats and pay their bills, The Cleveland Orchestra has unleashed a powerful set of initiatives that are already bearing fruit in increased attendance and revenue.

Last week, almost at the same time as the head of Universal Music’s classical division was preaching a “change or be doomed” message to the Association of British Orchestras, the Musical Arts Association released an impressive report on its first half of season ticket sales demonstrating that a number of the new plans it announced at the launching of the Center for Future Audiences in October of 2010 have already taken hold.

During November and December of 2012, 51,184 people attended performances (92% of capacity), an increase of 38% over the previous year. During that same period, the Orchestra took in $2.8 million in ticket sales (a 47% increase over 2011) and increased its Holiday Festival sales by 16% to a record total of $1,177,271. [Read more…]

Preview: Apollo’s Fire: Intimate Vivaldi— a conversation with lutenist Ronn McFarlane

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by Mike Telin

Apollo’sMcFarlane-Ronn Fire has cozy “fireside” events planned for its next two sets of concerts, “Intimate Vivaldi” from January 31-February 3 and “Intimate Bach, Part II” from March 14-17. The Vivaldi set will feature lutenist Ronn McFarlane in the “Red Priest’s” lute concertos and violinists Olivier Brault and Johanna Novom will join McFarlane in chamber music by Vivaldi’s musical forebears and colleagues Giovanni Zamboni, Dario Castello, Biagio Marini and Giovanni Legrenzi, assisted by violist Kristen Linfante, cellist René Schiffer and William Simms on theorbo and guitar.

McFarlane began his career as a blues and rock guitarist, but went on to study classical guitar at the Peabody Conservatory under Paul O’Dette, Roger Harmon and Pat O’Brien. By the late 1970s, McFarlane had switched his musical attention to the lute and helped found the Baltimore Consort.

[Read more…]

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