Following the junior semifinal rounds at the Cleveland Institute of Music on Tuesday, June 5, the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists announced the three pianists who will advance to the final round with the Canton Symphony on Friday evening. They are, from left to right, Eva Gevorgyan, 13 (Russia), Yunchan Lim, 13 (South Korea), and Hao Wei Lin, 13 (Taiwan). The senior semifinal rounds will be held in Mixon Hall on Wednesday, June 6 at 1:00 and 7:00 pm, with the finalists to be named after the evening session. More information and live stream here.
Apollo’s Fire: “Tarantella!” — fifteen minutes with Brian Kay
by Daniel Hathaway
Oudist, lutenist, and guitarist Brian Kay has teamed up with vocalist Amanda Powell and artistic director and keyboardist Jeannette Sorrell to curate Apollo’s Fire’s Countryside Concerts show, “Tarantella! Rhythms of the Old Mediterranean.” The program will receive five performances in Hunting Valley, Avon Lake, Chardon, and Bath from June 8-12.
“Last year’s ‘Mediterranean Roots’ was so successful that Jeannette, Amanda, and I discussed how to rearrange it with a few additions of musicians and repertory to make it fresh,” Kay said in a telephone conversation. He added that it’s much easier to collaborate now that he and his wife have moved to Cleveland from Baltimore. “Now I can bring my guitar to Amanda’s house, where she’ll sit at the piano and we’ll play everything from Stevie Wonder to The Beatles to Medieval and Appalachian music and come up with ideas. Now Jeannette can also come by and participate.” [Read more…]
The McGaffin Carillon at 50: a chat with carillonneur George Leggiero
by Daniel Hathaway
As a high school student, George Leggiero enjoyed collecting chiming clocks. When he arrived as a freshman at Case Western Reserve University, he couldn’t help but notice the mammoth chiming timepiece in the tower of the Church of the Covenant — especially when he moved next door into Mather House for his junior and senior years. “My room overlooked the tower, so you either got to love the bells or you moved,” he said in a telephone conversation.
Leggiero obviously got to love them — in October, he’ll celebrate his 45th anniversary as resident carillonneur for the McGaffin Memorial Carillon, a job that came with a learning curve. “I’d had two semesters of piano lessons when the church asked me if I was interested in the job. I worked by myself for a month, I auditioned, they hired me, and I’ve been there ever since.”
Time out for a brief comparison of church bells. [Read more…]
EMA Prize for Duffin & Simmons
Ross W. Duffin and Beverly Simmons have been named co-recipients of Early Music America’s 2018 Howard Mayer Brown Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Field of Early Music. [Read more…]
Callisto & Razumovsky Quartets at Fischoff
CIM chamber groups took top prizes at the 2018 Fischoff Competition at the University of Notre Dame on May 13. [Read more…]
Lisa Wong promoted at Severance Hall
Lisa Wong has been named Director of Choruses for The Cleveland Orchestra, effective May 16. [Read more…]
CityMusic: all-Beethoven with violinist Tessa Lark (May 20)
by Daniel Hathaway
Surely it was just a coincidence that CityMusic Cleveland’s final series of concerts mostly duplicated works The Cleveland Orchestra had played the week before in the third concert of its all-Beethoven Prometheus Project at Severance Hall. The unique piece on CityMusic’s program was the Violin Concerto, which received a glowing performance by Tessa Lark and the ensemble on Sunday afternoon, May 20 in St. Noel Church in Willoughby. [Read more…]
CIPC’s second Young Artist Competition to run from May 30 through June 9
by Daniel Hathaway
Twenty-two young pianists from eleven countries will flock to the Cleveland Institute of Music next week to compete in both junior and senior divisions of the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists. (Meet the contestants here.)
The competition — verging on a festival with the inclusion of several extra events — will be set in motion on Wednesday evening, May 30 with a 7:30 pm opening ceremony in Kulas Hall featuring Canadian pianist Leonid Nediak. Only 12 when he took home second prize in CIPC’s junior division in 2015, Nediak will play solo works before joining Liza Grossman and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto. WCLV’s Robert Conrad will introduce all of the contestants from the stage, and a reception will follow.
Competition rounds begin on Thursday afternoon, May 31 in Kulas Hall and continue daily through the semifinal rounds on June 6, when three pianists in each of the junior (ages 12-14) and senior divisions (ages 15-17) will advance to the final round. That event, on Friday, June 8 at 7:30 pm at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, will feature concerto performances with Gerhardt Zimmermann and the Canton Symphony Orchestra. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra Prometheus Project II: Beethoven’s Ninth at Severance (May 17)
by Daniel Hathaway
The Cleveland Orchestra’s Centennial Season came to a festive conclusion at Severance Hall on Thursday, May 17. After performing the first eight of Beethoven’s symphonies in four concerts between May 9 and 13, Franz Welser-Möst led the Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra Chorus (prepared by Lisa Wong), and soloists Erin Wall, Jennifer Johnston, Norbert Ernst, and Dashon Burton in a blazing account of “The Ninth,” the final performance in Welser-Möst’s deeply philosophical Prometheus Project. (Read David Kulma’s reviews of the earlier concerts here.) [Read more…]
Quire Cleveland bids adieu to its founders with free retrospective concert at St. John’s
by Daniel Hathaway
The professional singers of Quire Cleveland will end their 10th anniversary season this Saturday evening May 26 at 7:30 pm, with a free concert at St. John’s Cathedral featuring favorite pieces from the ensemble’s repertoire. The event will also mark the retirement of Quire’s founders, Ross W. Duffin and Beverly Simmons, who plan to take up residence both in California and Washington D.C. to be close to their children and grandchildren.
Duffin and Simmons have been catalysts for early music in Cleveland since Duffin’s arrival at Case Western Reserve University in 1978. Among other activities, they produced the Chapel, Court and Countryside concert series at CWRU, and Duffin hosted the National Public Radio program Micrologos: Exploring the World of Early Music. Under his tutelage, a constant stream of early music specialists has emerged from Case over the decades, and Duffin was named Distinguished University Professor last year.
Crowning their achievements, on May 23, Early Music America named Duffin and Simmons as the recipients of the 2018 Howard Mayer Brown Award for lifetime achievement in the field of early music. [Read more…]