ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad

Cleveland Women’s Orchestra to feature pianist Angelin Chang

by

by Daniel Hathaway

CHANG-AngelinIn 2011, pianist Angelin Chang was featured in Mozart’s D-minor Piano Concerto with the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra at Severance Hall. This Sunday, April 22 at 3:30 pm, the Cleveland State University professor will return to solo with that ensemble in a very different work, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto.

“It’s one of the most popular concertos of all time,” the pianist said in a telephone conversation, “but sometimes after hearing those beautiful, lush, transporting themes we forget that the piece came from a grim place in his life. Rachmaninoff had deep depression and writer’s block until his hypnotist got him out of it. It’s important to know so that the beauty and passion can come through in this technically difficult piece.”

(Speaking of going from one mood to the other, Chang told me about her niece who wanted to visit Cleveland in February to get away from the sun and heat of California. “Though the weather didn’t cooperate and they didn’t get to experience ice and snow, they were so excited to have gloomy weather so they could appreciate the other kind later.”) [Read more…]

BW’s 86th Bach Festival to feature Chatham Baroque & Kenari Saxophones

by

by Daniel Hathaway

BW Chorus & OrchThough the composer wasn’t around to blow out the candles on his 333rd birthday cake in March, Johann Sebastian Bach’s music lives on in both traditional and surprising ways. The Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival, whose 86th edition will be celebrated in Berea on April 20 and 21, will touch both the historic and the innovative poles of all things Bach, hosting a period instrument ensemble as well as a saxophone quartet.

“Chatham Baroque sits at the center,” Festival director Dirk Garner said in a telephone conversation. “They’ll be doing their own concert of music by Bach and earlier composers on Friday night, and they’re sharing their expertise by helping prepare the orchestra for Saturday evening’s performance of the St. John Passion.”

This year, the Bach Festival has hired a professional orchestra for the major Bach work. “Chatham’s Andrew Fouts will be the concertmaster, Scott Pauley is playing lute, and Patricia Halvorsen viola da gamba. They’re great musicians and really cool people,” Garner said. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: being a fly on the wall at early rehearsals of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo

by

by Daniel Hathaway

Coro Wandering onto setAdmirers of Thomas Forrest Kelly’s 2000 book First Nights: Five Musical Premieres probably wish they could have been physically present to witness the very first performances of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, and Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps.

Me? I wish I had been able to attend the rehearsals — which often prove as interesting as the performances themselves. Rehearsals are where artistic philosophies get established, deals are made between directors and performers, and kinks get worked out. When the piece in question is a staged work, the rehearsal process becomes more complex: the ideas (and egos) of more than one director need to be melded into a single product, and there’s much more that can go awry.

Apollo’s Fire will produce three semi-staged performances of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo in the next week: two in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music on Friday and Saturday, April 13 and 14 at 7:30 pm, and one at St. Raphael Church in Bay Village on Wednesday, April 18 at 7:30 pm. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra announces 2018 Summers@Severance events

by

by Daniel Hathaway

Summers@SeveranceThe Cleveland Orchestra will welcome three guest conductors to lead its early Friday evening Summers@Severance Concerts in July and August.

Herbert Blomstedt, who will turn 91 shortly before his July 27 appearance with the Orchestra, will lead the ensemble in Brahms’ Fourth Symphony.

Vasily Petrenko, who leads the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the Oslo Philharmonic, will conduct Elgar’s In the South and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra on August 10.

And two artists will make their Severance Hall debuts on August 24 when conductor Jonathan Cohen joins pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout in Haydn’s Piano Concerto No. 11 in D. Also on the program are Handel’s Occasional Oratorio Overture and Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 in g. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland announces its seventh season, to run June 14-30

by

by Daniel Hathaway

COHEN-Frank-&-DianaNine concerts under the banner of “In Search of Freedom” will take place in venues around Cleveland from June 14-30 as ChamberFest Cleveland launches its seventh season with a look into the individual struggles and joys of composers.

Founded by Cleveland Orchestra principal clarinet emeritus Franklin Cohen and his daughter, Diana Cohen, who is concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic, the festival will feature such favorite artists as Yura Lee, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Alexi Kenney, Oliver Herbert, Roman Rabinovich, Orion Weiss, Nathan Farrington, Julie Albers, and Amy Schwartz Moretti. Among the new faces in 2018 will be flutist Lorna McGhee and violist Tanner Menees, one of this summer’s artists in residence. [Read more…]

Chagrin Concert Series to feature Andrew Sords in new Evan Fein sonata

by

by Daniel Hathaway

Fein- EvanViolinist Andrew Sords will bring a new piece by Cleveland-born, New York-based composer Evan Fein (left) to his recital with Eriko Izumida on Sunday afternoon, April 15 at 3:00 pm at Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls. In addition to Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata, Schubert’s Rondo, and Sarasate’s Gypsy Airs, Sords’ program on the Chagrin Concert Series will feature the first performance of Fein’s Untranslatable (Violin Sonata No. 1).

In a telephone conversation from New York, where he teaches at the Juilliard School, Fein noted that he’s known Andrew Sords for years — the composer grew up in Richmond Heights and he and the violinist were in the same class at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Fein wrote a piece for Sords as his senior thesis, and years later, Sords commissioned Untranslatable, which Fein completed last summer.

I asked him where he got the idea for that title.

[Read more…]

Deborah Pae to join Earth and Air at St. Paul’s

by

by Daniel Hathaway

PAE-Deborah Sam ZauscherCellist Deborah Pae will journey to Cleveland this weekend for the musical equivalent of a blind date with David Ellis and his Earth and Air: String Orchestra. “I’ve not met David yet,” the cellist said in a telephone conversation. “The first rehearsal will be our first introduction.” Pae will be the featured soloist in a program of music by Jeffrey Mumford and Tchaikovsky on Friday evening, April 6 at 7:30 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights.

Mumford acted as matchmaker for Pae’s concert with Earth and Air. In November of 2016, he brought the cellist to the Signature Series at Lorain County Community College for a solo recital, an engagement which came about in a similar fashion. “Jeffrey simply wrote to me through my website,” Pae said. “He really loves writing for the cello. I was still transitioning from Europe back to the States, and it took a while to discuss projects and possibilities.”

After that solo recital, Mumford suggested Ellis’ string orchestra to Pae, who is professor of cello at Eastern Michigan University and cellist with the Formosa Quartet. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Vinikour & Denève (March 25)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

Vinikour, JorySometimes the most interesting programs bring together pieces that wouldn’t have met under normal circumstances. Sunday afternoon’s Cleveland Orchestra concert on March 25 at Severance Hall under the direction of guest conductor Stéphane Denève was a case in point. Denève paired Poulenc’s bizarrely charming Concert champêtre for harpsichord and large orchestra with Rachmaninoff’s gorgeously overwrought Second Symphony. [Read more…]

Akron Symphony tours Planet Earth (March 23)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

ASO Planet EarthHearing the Akron Symphony’s “Planet Earth” program on Friday evening, March 23 in E.J. Thomas Hall was like playing around with Google Earth — the fascinating app that lets you zoom around between completely unrelated global destinations from the comfort of your laptop. Music Director Christopher Wilkins crafted an itinerary that visited both poles — Antarctica and the Finnish Arctic — tucking in trips to Rome and the Scottish Hebrides as well. [Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us