by Daniel Hathaway
Pianist Kirill Gerstein was the center of attention at last Friday’s Cleveland Orchestra Fridays@7 performance at Severance Hall — both during and after the concert. The Russian-born pianist, who is equally at home in classical and jazz, brought a new approach to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue that made the piece sound newly-minted, and enchanted the audience at the After Party in the Grand Foyer with jazz-inspired pieces by Ligeti, Earl Wild, and Oscar Levant. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Former assistant conductor James Gaffigan will return to the podium at Severance Hall from Thursday, January 5 through Saturday, January 7 to lead The Cleveland Orchestra and pianist Kirill Gerstein in Bernard Hermann’s Suite from Psycho, Arnold Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto, the original, jazz band version of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. Performances include Thursday and Saturday evenings, a Friday matinee and a Fridays@7 event.
From January 6-8, the Philadelphia-based vocal ensemble, The Crossing, will give sixeen performances of David Lang’s Lifespan in Gallery 218 — the glass house that rises above the Cleveland Museum of Art’s East Boulevard façade. Surrounding a 4-billion-year-old rock suspended from the ceiling, three vocalists will whistle and breathe, moving the rock like a pendulum, “a poetic form of wind erosion” (read a preview here). Performances are scheduled for Friday at 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 7:45 and 8:30 pm, and on Saturday and Sunday on the hour from noon to 4:00 pm. Weigh in on your experience by sharing your own comments on the ClevelandClassical.com Facebook page. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Beginning on Friday, January 6 at 4:00 pm, three members of the award-winning Philadelphia-based choir, The Crossing, will present the first of sixteen performances of David Lang’s Lifespan, a fifteen-minute work for three or more whistlers, in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gallery 218, East Wing Glass Box. See our concert listings page for additional performance dates and times.
In his artist statement for the composition, Lang writes: “Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla asked me to work with them for a major 2014 retrospective of their work in Philadelphia, this time on a piece that would represent an encounter between musicians and a four-billion-year-old rock, one of the oldest intact rocks remaining in the world. For this piece I imagined that the musicians would use their breath and their voices to challenge and threaten the suspended rock, in the way that the forces of nature have been challenging it for the previous four billion years.”
Yes, you read that correctly. During each performance, an approximately 4 billion year-old rock — found during a geological dig in Alberta, Canada — will hang from the gallery ceiling while the vocalists whistle and breathe, subtly moving the Hadean-period rock like a pendulum. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Excellent performances of chamber music written by 7 of the 34 members of the Cleveland Composers Guild were featured in a collaborative concert with the Syndicate for the New Arts on Sunday evening, December 4 at Historic St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ohio City. [Read more…]
The gift of music is always a wonderful way to say happy holidays to friends and family. The week, the editors and correspondents of ClevelandClassical.com are pleased to suggest nineteen CDs released in 2016 by outstanding musicians, most of whom call Northeast Ohio home.
There’s certainly something on this list for every classical music lover. Click on the links at the end of each paragraph to read complete reviews of each album. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Tradition reigns during the December holidays, but new infusions into what might be called “The Great Christmas Carol Book” can give new life to musical celebrations. Think of King’s College, Cambridge, whose choir annually commissions a new piece — often strikingly new — for its Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, broadcast live on Christmas Eve.
Summit Choral Society will include a new carol setting in its Candlelight Christmas Concerts at St. Bernard’s Church in downtown Akron on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening, December 16, 17 at 18 at 7:30 pm. As part of the “Bells” section of the program, the Masterworks Chorale will perform a newly-commissioned setting of I heard the bells on Christmas Day written by University of Akron music major Mickey McGroarty.
In a telephone conversation, conducting fellow Anna Ahrens noted that Summit Choral Society artistic director Marie Bucoy-Calavan has adopted the mission of “Preserving and conserving — passing classical choral music on to younger generations. My position, our program of choral scholars, and the inclusion of young soloists are all part of that, as well as giving real-world experience to a student composer.” [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The New York-based period instrument ensemble Quicksilver, co-directed by violinists Robert Mealy and Cleveland’s own Julie Andrijeski, have released an enthralling album titled Fantasticus: extravagant and virtuosic music of the German seventeenth century. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Quire Cleveland’s live recording from its May 2016 concerts featuring the sacred music of William Byrd is distinguished by any measure, but it also comes with more than a little nostalgia. This is one of the last recordings to be engineered under the sure hand of Tom Knab, who died in August. The album is dedicated to his memory. (Read an appreciation here.) [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
College of Wooster music professor Jack Gallagher has released a retrospective CD of his piano music on the Centaur label, performed by Miami University professor Frank Huang, and recorded at the studios of WFMT in Chicago. More than just a sound album, the disc also represents an Enigma Variations-style introduction to Gallagher’s family and friends, to whom most of the pieces are dedicated. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Name four chamber works scored for oboe, viola, and piano. Then name four chamber works for oboe, viola, and piano that are based on poetry. Most of us would give up before getting to the second question. But the Jackson Trio — oboist Roger Roe, violist Michael Isaac Strauss, and pianist R. Kent Cook — have turned up pieces by August Klughardt, Felix Harold White, Josef Holbrooke, and Charles Martin Loeffler that fit the criteria for their fascinating album, Wordless Verses, released on the Oberlin Music Label. [Read more…]