by Daniel Hathaway
Modeling consummate artistry for the 35 participants and associates in the opening performance of the 2018 Cleveland Trombone Seminar in CSU’s Drinko Hall on Saturday afternoon, June 16, founder and director Shachar Israel showed how varied and engaging a program of transcriptions for the instrument can be. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
“We’ve always treated French music as something very special,” Kenneth Slowik, artistic director of the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, said in a telephone conversation. “It’s one of the two reigning styles in Baroque music that we have to come back to on a regular basis.”
BPI originally rotated annually between studies of the four main national schools of Baroque performance practice — English, German, Italian, and French — but now organizes its summer institutes more thematically. Currently in the second and final week of its 47th season, the BPI faculty is busy teaching the finer points of French Baroque style to 101 students of all ages and levels of accomplishment. “We try to instill in our students some sense of how we do what we do — and why — through teaching, lectures, and by example,” Slowik said.
Before they can assign those students to the weekly chamber groups in which much of the teaching takes place, the faculty have an immense puzzle to put together. “It’s always mysterious who’s going to show up,” Slowik said. “This year we have a raft of bassoonists. Some years we’re light in the flute department and some years it’s overflowing.” [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Although ChamberFest Cleveland dubbed its third concert “The Independent Spirit,” it might just as aptly have been titled “The Indefatigable Pianist” in honor of Roman Rabinovich. He spent the entire evening at the keyboard on Saturday, June 16 in Mixon Hall, flawlessly spinning out one elegantly articulated phrase after another. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
With less than two weeks to go before students in the 50th Kent/Blossom Music Festival descend on the Kent State University campus for five weeks of rehearsals, master classes, and coachings, festival director Ricardo Sepulveda is close to solving the annual puzzle of scheduling daily activities for 43 students and 30 faculty members — mostly from The Cleveland Orchestra. “It keeps me up at night,” he said in a recent telephone conversation.
This summer’s students (16 of whom are international, hailing from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Japan, and Colombia) will arrive on July 1 and begin their experience with a dinner for participants, faculty, donors, and host families who will house eight of the students. “Rehearsals, coachings, and lessons start right up the next day,” Sepulveda said.
Recruitment began in mid-winter. “I changed the process a bit, shortening it to end before the first of March. Instead of print, we did online promotion using the Violin Channel and Facebook, which allows us to reach people faster,” he said, noting that the Festival is now old enough that it’s fun to see students of former students applying. Once they settle in at Kent, there are busy days ahead. [Read more…]
Cleveland — June 19. The Cleveland International Piano Competition announced today that Israeli-born pianist Yaron Kohlberg has been retained as its next President and CEO. Kohlberg, who won second prize at CIPC in 2007, will take up his duties on September 1. Read more here.
by Daniel Hathaway
To mark the 100th anniversary of Polish independence, The Cleveland Opera and Cleveland Ballet will present Stanislaw Moniuszko’s 1865 opera, Straszny Dwór (“The Haunted Manor”), on Saturday, June 16 at 7:30 pm at the Ohio Theatre in Playhouse Square.
“It was popular at its debut in the mid-19th century, but Poland was under partition between Russia, Prussia, and Austria, so there’s a patriotic undercurrent,” soprano, executive artistic director — and native Pole — Dorota Sobieska said in a telephone conversation. “It’s a Polish opera. We sing and I cry. It’s sentimental. It’s where my heart is.”
“The music is wonderful,” conductor Grzegorz Nowak said in a separate phone call. “It was all composed by Moniuszko, but it has a folk quality to it. The Mazur [Mazurka] has even been texted so it can be sung by a choir.”
Nowak, also Polish, is principal associate conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as music director of The Grand National Opera (Teatr Wielki) in Warsaw. He studied at Tanglewood, earned his doctorate at Eastman, then served on the faculty of Bowling Green State University. He’s quite familiar with Moniuszko’s piece, having first conducted it in Warsaw in what he describes as “quite a scandalous production.” [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Customarily, the Cleveland International Piano Competition announces its winner late in the evening of its final round, which this year featured concertos with the Canton Symphony Orchestra on Friday evening, June 8 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center. But for the Young Artists Competition this time around, CIPC kept its competitors and followers in suspense until an awards ceremony the following evening at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Here are the results (L-R: Shuan Hern Lee, Hao Wei Lin, Eva Gevorgyan, Xiaoxuan Li, Yunchan Lim, JiWon Yang):
JUNIOR DIVISION
First Prize ($10,000): Eva Gevorgyan (13, Russia)
Second Prize ($5,000): Yunchan Lim (13, South Korea)
Third Prize ($2,500): Hao Wei Lin (13, Taiwan)
SENIOR DIVISION
First Prize ($25,000): Xiaoxuan Li (16, China)
Second Prize ($10,000): Shuan Hern Lee (15, Australia)
Third Prize ($5,000): JiWon Yang (16, South Korea) [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists brought 22 pianists (ages 12-17) from 11 countries to Cleveland beginning on May 30. By the beginning of the semifinals on Tuesday, June 5, six remained in the junior half of the draw, and seven in the senior. All were impressive performers, some of whom could stand up proudly to participants in CIPC’s 18-30 event. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Two talented young writers have joined the ClevelandClassical.com masthead as Nicholas R. Jones Young Writer Fellows for June and July. They will participate in all aspects of running a website devoted to classical music including conducting interviews, writing previews and reviews of events and posting them to the site, maintaining our concert listings, and managing social media.
The fellowships are named in honor of the long-time Oberlin Professor who lent his support and writing skills to the website from its founding in 2008 until his retirement in 2017. Major funding for the fellowships comes from the Mandel Foundation. [Read more…]
Following the senior semifinal rounds at the Cleveland Institute of Music on Wednesday, June 6, the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists announced the three pianists who will advance to the senior half of the final round with the Canton Symphony on Friday evening: JiWon Yang, 16 (South Korea), Xiaoxuan Li, 16 (China), and Shuan Hern Lee, 15 (Australia).
In performance order, here are the six finalists and their concertos (first movements only). Junior Division: Yunchan Lim (Chopin’s Concerto No. 1); Eva Gevorgyan (Grieg’s Concerto); Hao Wei Lin (Chopin’s Concerto No. 1). Senior Division: JiWon Yang (Grieg’s Concerto); Xiaoxuan Li (Chopin’s Concerto No 2); and Shuan Hern Lee (Grieg’s Concerto). The finals will be broadcast live over WCLV Ideastream, 104.9 FM and prizes will be announced and awarded at a ceremony in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Saturday evening at 7:30 pm. More information here.