Les Délices, Cleveland’s premier period-instrument chamber ensemble, is seeking a creative and detail-oriented candidate to serve as our new Marketing & Box Office Assistant to manage ticket sales and related marketing efforts. [Read more…]
Boston trombones join Case early music ensembles for Venetian concertos (Feb. 17)
by Daniel Hathaway
If you grew up before the late 20th-century early music enlightenment took hold, you might have thought from the available recordings that Venetian congregations visiting the Basilica of San Marco regularly heard music by the Gabrielis and their colleagues played by big, loud brass ensembles. Not so. [Read more…]
Bennewitz Quartet in all-Czech program on Rocky River Chamber Music Series (Feb. 12)
by Daniel Hathaway
“We don’t often play all-Czech programs,” Bennewitz Quartet second violinist Štěpán Ježek said from the stage of West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church on Monday evening, February 12. But the Rocky River Chamber Music Society audience can be glad they did on that occasion. Ježek joined his colleagues Jakub Fišer, violin, Jiří Pinkas, viola, and Štěpán Doležal, cello, in white-hot performances of works by Leoš Janáček, Bedřich Smetana, and Antonín Dvořák, playing with the pure intensity that only native Czechs could have achieved.
Oberlin Artist Recital Series: Roomful of Teeth with the Oberlin College Choir (Feb. 16)
by Daniel Hathaway
Brad Wells’ groundbreaking vocal octet, Roomful of Teeth, spent a few days last week on the Oberlin College campus, giving demonstrations, holding master classes, and answering questions before joining Greg Ristow’s Oberlin College Choir in a jaw-dropping, larynx-challenging concert in Finney Chapel. [Read more…]
Pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi on Music from the Western Reserve (Feb. 11)
by Daniel Hathaway
Antonio Pompa-Baldi’s piano recital on Sunday afternoon, February 11 on the Music From the Western Reserve series at Christ Episcopal Church in Hudson checked all the boxes on the Perfect Sunday Afternoon Concert scorecard. It lasted just over an hour, visited some unusual repertoire in varying styles, let the music speak for itself without extraneous commentary from the stage, and was brilliantly performed, to boot.
Cleveland Orchestra with Labadie and Faust (Feb. 15)
by Daniel Hathaway
Musical chameleon that it can be, The Cleveland Orchestra put itself completely in the hands of Montréal-based early music specialist Bernard Labadie and German violinist Isabelle Faust on Thursday evening, February 15, producing fresh and insightful versions of standard works by Mendelssohn and Mozart, and a tantalizing taste of the work of a little-known Parisian composer of the Classical era. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra: “Uchida’s Mozart” (Feb. 8)
by Daniel Hathaway
Early and late Mozart piano concertos were featured on the program when pianist Mitsuko Uchida paid her annual visit to The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall last Thursday, February 8. In between, concertmaster William Preucil captained the Orchestra on a virtual musical barge trip down the Thames via festive selections from Handel’s Water Music. [Read more…]
CIM Faculty Recital: “From the Shtetl to the Concert Stage,” Jan. 26
by Daniel Hathaway
On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, CIM faculty cellist Melissa Kraut joined her sister, clarinetist Rena Kraut, in Mixon Hall to share a family album of photos, remembrances, and music chronicling the journey of their forebears from Rzeszów in Nazi-occupied Poland to Palestine and Israel, and finally to the United States. Assisted by faculty pianist Anita Pontremoli, the Kraut sisters presented a moving timeline titled “From the Shtetl to the Concert Stage: The Thread that Sustained Music through the Holocaust” (Shtetl is Yiddish for “village.”) [Read more…]
Oberlin plans four-concert Historical Performance WinterFest
by Daniel Hathaway
The Oberlin Conservatory will present a four-concert Historical Performance WinterFest this month, including performances by the Flanders Recorder Quartet, lutenist Nigel North, the Oberlin Baroque Ensemble, and faculty harpsichordist Mark Edwards. Baroque flute professor Michael Lynn, who has organized the events, said, “They should all be excellent concerts, and the price can’t be beat — free!” The festival includes two public master classes as well as the performances.
HP WinterFest begins on Tuesday, February 20 with an 8:00 pm performance by the Flanders Recorder Quartet in Fairchild Chapel, a stop on the ensemble’s 30th Anniversary Farewell Tour. Founded in Belgium in 1987 and comprising Bart Spanhove, Paul Van Loey, Tom Beets, and Joris Van Goethem, the Quartet began touring following their success at the 1990 Musica Antiqua Competition in Bruges. After a career that has included more than 1,800 concerts in 42 countries, the ensemble has decided to disband at the end of 2018. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra announces 50th Anniversary Blossom Season
by Daniel Hathaway
Blossom Music Center will celebrate its 50th anniversary in the summer of 2018 with concerts by The Cleveland Orchestra, Blossom Festival Band, and Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra; special guests including cellist Yo Yo Ma, Broadway legend Audra McDonald, and Roger Daltrey of The Who; and screenings of Singing in the Rain, The Little Mermaid, and Star Wars: A New Hope with live scores performed by the Orchestra.
For selected events, Image Magnification (IMAG) on LED screens in the Pavilion will display live footage from concerts, giving audience members throughout the Pavilion the opportunity to clearly see the musicians onstage. IMAG is provided in partnership with ideastream.
Since its opening in 1968, Blossom has drawn over 400,000 visitors each summer, a total of over 20 million guests during its first half-century. [Read more…]