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Cleveland Orchestra: Gerstein plays new Adès Concerto (Oct. 11)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Pianist Kirill Gerstein brought the resplendent new concerto that Thomas Adès has written for him to Severance Hall on October 11. Debuted by the Boston Symphony earlier this year when it was led by Adès himself, the simply titled Piano Concerto formed the torso of a topsy-turvy Cleveland Orchestra program guest conducted by Alan Gilbert that began with a symphony, and ended with an overture. In 25 eventful minutes, Adès creates a sendup of the Romantic piano concerto, clothing a traditional body in the latest fashion. [Read more…]

Frady to guest direct BW’s
Dido and Aeneas at Red Space

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by Daniel Hathaway

Baldwin Wallace Opera Theater will stage Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at Red Space in downtown Cleveland on Wednesday and Thursday, October 23 and 24 at 7:00 pm, in a production directed by Kathryn Frady of Knoxville’s Marble City Opera.

Frady returns to BW at the invitation of opera studies director Scott Skiba, after having directed scenes and sung in a premiere during Cleveland Opera Theater’s {New Opera Works} Festival two years ago. “I love contemporary opera,” she said in a recent telephone conversation. “This season, Marble City Opera is producing the world premiere of Shadowlight by Larry Delinger and Emily Anderson. It’s about Beauford Delaney, a famous artist who grew up in Knoxville. We’re building a whole festival around the opera from January through May.

Dido and Aeneas, on the other hand, is a very old theater piece, perhaps having been first performed in London at a dancing school in the late 1680s. “Dido was Scott’s idea,” Frady said. “Originally, we were to have staged Menotti’s The Medium, but casting issues made a switch necessary. But Dido is a great piece.” [Read more…]

“Tallis Through the Looking Glass” with The Thirteen Choir at St. John’s

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by Daniel Hathaway

Matthew Robertson’s The Thirteen Choir will visit the Helen D. Schubert Concert Series at St. John’s Cathedral on Wednesday, October 23 at 7:30 pm with its program “Tallis Through the Looking Glass.” A freewill offering will be received.

Robertson, based in Washington D.C., started his ensemble the better part of a decade ago with special repertory considerations in mind. “There are not many American professional choirs, and even fewer with an interest in singing all kinds of music,” he said in a recent telephone conversation. “My interests are more kaleidoscopic.”

Singers are drawn from a nationwide network of choral ensembles, chosen for each program based on the repertoire. And the name? Robertson, no triskaidekaphobiac, had America’s original colonies in mind in calling his ensemble The Thirteen Choir, but also found that twelve singers (plus himself) constituted the most practical format.

The Thirteen’s Cleveland program is fascinating. “It’s chiastic,” Robertson said. “Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia and Tallis’ votive antiphon Gaude gloriosa Dei Mater are the bookends. [Read more…]

Jerusalem String Quartet
returns to CCMS Series

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by Daniel Hathaway

The Jerusalem String Quartet, now beginning its 24th season together, will give the second concert of the 70th season of the Cleveland Chamber Music Society at Plymouth Church on Tuesday October 22 at 7:30 pm. Their program includes works by Mozart, Korngold, and Shostakovich.

One of CCMS’s most frequently-invited ensembles, the Jerusalem Quartet has visited the series once a year since 2017, and once every other year from 2010 through 2015. In addition to Cleveland, the ensemble’s U.S. tours this season will include concerts in Houston, Durham, Baltimore, West Orange New Jersey, and New York, and a return to Boston’s Celebrity Series.

The Quartet’s program on  October 22 begins with Mozart’s Quartet in d, K. 421, one of the set of six quartets the composer dedicated to his mentor, Joseph Haydn. For someone who normally composed rapidly and with little effort — Mozart’s sister noted that he often concocted whole pieces in his head while playing games, then sat down and simply wrote them out — these works inspired the composer to produce music at a level of perfection unusual even for him. [Read more…]

Dark Horse Consort joins Apollo’s Fire to explore “Echoes of Venice” 

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by Daniel Hathaway

Turning away at the beginning of the 17th century from the Flemish polyphonic tradition — which had long reigned in the private chapel of the Doges in Venice — San Marco organist Giovanni Gabrieli took advantage of the church’s multiple choir lofts to invent a new polychoral style that allowed for complex spatial effects, including echoes.

Probably more than a few audience members attending Apollo’s Fire’s “Echoes of Venice” performances this week were first introduced to Gabrieli’s opulent music through a famous old recording by organist E. Power Biggs, the Gregg Smith Singers, the Texas Boys Choir, and the Edward Tarr Brass Ensemble — who performed on modern trumpets and trombones.

In four concerts this week, Apollo’s Fire and Apollo’s Singers will join the Dark Horse Consort, a Boston-based ensemble comprising period strings, cornetti, and sackbuts, to recreate the sounds that might actually have bounced back and forth under the seven domes of St. Mark’s in 1615. That was the year Gabrieli published his 14-part motet for three choirs, In Ecclesiis. [Read more…]

Electroacoustic composer Sarah Davachi on CMA series at Transformer Station (Oct. 6)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Some composers of electroacoustic music are content to assemble collections of ear-tickling sounds — the musical equivalent of shiny objects that briefly attract attention. Others construct pieces that feature some kind of unifying narrative that invites the listener on a journey with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Canadian-born Sarah Davachi belongs to the latter persuasion, as she demonstrated at Transformer Station on Sunday evening, October 6. Her engaging, hour-long performance was part of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series. [Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Raphaël Feuillâtre at Plymouth (Oct. 5)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Concluding a week-long residency, 23-year-old French guitarist Raphaël Feuillâtre played the opening concert of the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s International Series on Saturday evening, October 5. His program of works by Paraguayan, Spanish, French, Cuban, Brazilian, and Russian composers — some written for the instrument, some transcribed — covered a broad range of styles and introduced one of the bright young lights of the guitar world to a good-sized audience in Plymouth Church. [Read more…]

Mexican pianist Daniela Liebman returns to Tri-C Classical Piano Series

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by Daniel Hathaway

She was fourteen when she first played on the Tri-C Classical Piano Series in 2016. Three years later, Mexican pianist Daniela Liebman returns for a free recital of works by Beethoven, Debussy, Prokofiev, and Chopin on Sunday, October 13 at 2:00 pm in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The original invitation to play in 2016 came through Antonio Pompa-Baldi. “He was on the jury when I won the Russian Piano Competition in California at the age of nine,” Liebman said by telephone from Fort Worth, Texas. “I came to Cleveland to study with him for a couple of months, and I was delighted that he and Emanuela Friscioni invited me to play on the Tri-C series.”

Born in Guadalajara to an American father and Mexican mother, Liebman began studying the piano at a young age. “My dad’s a violinist who graduated from Eastman, but he ended up going into business. He started me on piano at the age of five. [Read more…]

CCMS at the Maltz: Ehnes & Armstrong in first of three Beethoven recitals (Sept. 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong are celebrating the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth with performances of his ten sonatas for violin and piano. It’s a big undertaking, and performances can come in different configurations: the duo will sometimes play the whole lot over two or three adjacent evenings, or space them out over three widely-spread performances. The Cleveland Chamber Music Society has opted for the latter. The opening concert of the set took place at the Maltz Performing Arts Center on September 17, with others to follow on January 14 and April 21. [Read more…]

Karel Paukert presents Ars Organi II at St. Paul’s, Cleveland Heights

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by Daniel Hathaway

Organist Karel Paukert said in a recent telephone conversation that he often runs into people who tell him they miss the organ recitals he used to give during his tenure as curator of musical arts at the Cleveland Museum of Art. “I tell them, well just come to St. Paul’s.”

Paukert is referring to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, where he continues to serve as organist and choirmaster after retiring from the Museum. He plays occasional Sunday afternoon recitals there on the church’s two organs — the 1952 Holtkamp instrument at the front of the nave, and the 1986 Hradetzky Italian Baroque-style instrument in the back gallery.

Last fall, he launched a mini-festival of music for organ, voice, and instruments called Ars Organi. The second edition of that festival will span seven free events from September 29 through October 20.

The first concert on Sunday, September 29 at 4:00 pm will feature saxophonist Noa Even, who heads up new music activities at Kent State University. [Read more…]

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