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Anna White & Katie Fowler in
Musings of a Singing Mother

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by Daniel Hathaway

When soprano Anna E. White and mezzo-soprano Katie Fowler (left to right) met in the Cleveland Chamber Choir four years ago, they discovered they had one major thing in common. Both were balancing careers as professional vocalists with their responsibilities as mothers with small children at home. Three and a half years later, the two have created Musings of a Singing Mother, a cabaret show that celebrates the joys and complications of their everyday lives.

“The concept of the working mother is not new,” White said in a recent telephone conversation, “but because we have to practice at home and prepare for our rehearsals at night, we can be working on a phrase in an Italian aria and finding ourselves changing a dirty diaper or consoling a crying child in the same room. Those lives exist side by side, and we decided to put them on the stage to show people what we do.”

Having already presented their show in Medina in June, the duo will give it a second performance on Saturday, July 27 at 7:30 pm at the Aurora School of Music, where both serve on the faculty. They’ll be joined by pianist Will Hamilton and cellist Faith Rohde. Admission is free. [Read more…]

Summers@Severance: Mahler & Beethoven (July 12)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Making his only summer appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra, music director Franz Welser-Möst led the ensemble in an eventful hour-long program on Friday evening, July 12 in Severance Hall. The first concert in the Summers@Severance series, preceded and followed by drinks and food on the terrace, was a festive occasion that attracted a large audience, some got up as if headed for an English garden party, others dressing down for the steamy weather. Once inside the hall, they were so enthusiastic about the music that applause was ubiquitous and hearty. [Read more…]

Credo Music celebrates
20 years in Oberlin

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by Daniel Hathaway

Among the several distinguished chamber music programs in Northeast Ohio that welcome young musicians each summer, Credo Music is unique for its parallel emphasis on providing professional-level music instruction to students ages 13-23, and on serving others — both through outreach concerts and in volunteering opportunities in food banks, park districts, churches, Habitat for Humanity, and homeless shelters.

Oberlin Conservatory viola professor Peter Slowik, who founded Credo in Chicago in 1999, said in a recent telephone conversation that this summer is a time to reflect on the last two decades. “Twenty years is a big milestone. Musical generations turn over every three, four, or five years. This is an opportunity to look back and see what we’ve done in the past, and to pivot toward where we’re going to be in the future.”

Slowik said that Credo has been “blessed from the beginning” to have virtually all of its faculty return every summer. “We were all in our early 40s at the beginning, and now we’re all in our 60s, so we have to think about refreshing ourselves. Because we’re probably not going to keep doing this when we’re in our 90s, this is an inflection point.” [Read more…]

New “Music in the Circle” series debuts in University Circle in July

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by Daniel Hathaway

University Circle seemed to be firing on all cylinders last month — on Saturday, June 8, for example, in addition to hosting Parade the Circle, the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival and Cleveland International Piano Competition were producing simultaneous events at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra was packing Severance Hall for Jason Mraz down the street.

July is a different matter, and several U.C. institutions have joined forces to inject a new series into the calendar this year designed to keep performances flowing and to increase access to classical music. We spoke with Israeli pianist and recent CIM graduate Or Re’em, who is Music Director for Music in the Circle, an international summer music festival, to find out what’s in the plans.

Re’em had previously been involved with Judson Manor’s intergenerational program that houses CIM students in University Circle’s celebrated retirement community (read a New York Times feature here). “When the festival idea came up, Judson generously offered to sponsor visiting artists in their guest apartments,” he said. “That made it possible to invite artists from South Africa, Germany, Switzerland, and Israel. The program grew bigger than I originally expected.” [Read more…]

ENCORE “Sunday Unplugged” features unusual Bloch, Dvořák & Bartók (July 7)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The last “Sunday Unplugged” concert of ENCORE Chamber Music’s fourth season featured off-the-beaten-track works by Bloch, Dvořák, and Bartók in the sauna-like ambiance of the Tudor House music room at Gilmour Academy on Sunday afternoon, July 7. Fans wafting air over tubs of ice water helped cool the faculty and Young Artist performers, while the audience made good use of the stylish plastic hand fans the management thoughtfully provided. [Read more…]

Kent Blossom Music Festival: Kosower & Oh launch faculty series (July 3)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Masterclasses and coachings are valuable, but hearing your mentors perform is one of the most inspiring features summer music festivals can offer their young artists. In his ambitious program that opened the 2019 Kent Blossom faculty series on Wednesday, July 3 in Ludwig Recital Hall, Cleveland Orchestra principal cello Mark Kosower gave a variety of object lessons to an audience largely populated by festival participants. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Hungary for Music” (June 25)

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by Daniel Hathaway

For its eighth program on June 25, ChamberFest gathered four wildly different pieces under the banner of “Hungary for Music.” Works by Franz Liszt, Peter Eötvös, Johannes Brahms, and Ernst von Dohnányi received definitive performances on Friday evening in CIM’s Mixon Hall. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Sei Solo” at Mixon (June 22)

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by Timothy Robson

There was a full house at CIM’s Mixon Hall on Saturday evening June 22, despite numerous travails of parking due to construction and the Art Museum’s Summer Solstice event. But the hassle was worth it for Sei Solo (You Are Alone), a program of music by composers under the influence of loss. The selection of familiar and unfamiliar works is a hallmark of Chamberfest Cleveland and Saturday’s performance included works by J.S. Bach, John Cage, Mendelssohn and Brahms. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Mozart the Giant” (June 20)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Mozart the influencer was documented in music for winds by Beethoven and Poulenc for ChamberFest Cleveland’s fifth program on Thursday, June 20 in CIM’s Mixon Hall, while the notion of “Mozart the Giant” was affirmed by the composer’s own String Quintet in D. The first part of the evening was distinguished by elegant wind playing every bit as refined as what you would expect from a world-class string quartet, yet fully capable of incisive punctuation when the music called for emphatic gestures.

[Read more…]

Oberlin BPI’s Dido and Aeneas: ten minutes with Lucas Harris

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by Daniel Hathaway

The 48th year of Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute sports a remarkably inclusive theme: “Music of the Enemies of Louis XIV.” BPI’s promotional materials note that in addition to engaging in four large-scale conflicts, the French Sun King managed to ruffle the feathers of nearly every major power in Europe during his 72-year reign.

Last week’s faculty concert featured music by Joan Cabanilles, Johann Joseph Fux, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Heinrich Biber, Johannes Schenck, Tomaso Albinoni, Henry Purcell, and Arcangelo Corelli in a performance that filled Kulas Recital Hall to capacity just with BPI participants.

This Friday evening, June 28 at 7:30 pm, the big faculty/guest concert moves into the much larger space of Warner Concert Hall for Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in D, Op. 6, No. 4 in D, Petronio Franceschini’s Sonata for Two Trumpets, and Johann Joseph Fux’s Ouverture in d. The evening will close with a semi-staged production of Henry Purcell’s tragedy Dido and Aeneas, based on Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid. [Read more…]

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