by Jarrett Hoffman
Today, July 24, ACRONYM releases one of the most impressive and enjoyable recordings in recent memory, one that can be appreciated by scholars, aficionados, and plain old music lovers alike.
Miró Quartet begins Beethoven cycle for Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival (July 16)
by Jarrett Hoffman
The 24 hours leading up to the opening concert of this year’s Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival were, as artistic director Aloysia Friedmann said during a post-recital Q&A, “harrowing.”
Sphinx Performance Academy “at” CIM: advocating for diversity while going online
by Jarrett Hoffman
If there’s one classical music festival that best represents this particular moment in time, it might be the Sphinx Performance Academy. Not only does it focus on cultural diversity, and not only has it shifted online this summer due to the coronavirus pandemic, but it has also taken on a new dimension amidst the movement for racial justice sparked by the death of George Floyd.
SPA, as the festival is known, is a full-scholarship program focusing on chamber music and solo playing for string players ages 11-17 who come from cultural backgrounds that are underrepresented in classical music. It’s one of the many programs of the Detroit-based Sphinx Organization, founded in 1997 and devoted to diversity in the arts.
Multiple conservatories and schools of music have hosted SPA since it launched in 2004, including the Cleveland Institute of Music since 2017. And with physical hosting out of the question this year, the CIM-affiliated session will run online from July 25 to August 8. (That will follow other virtual sessions of SPA that took place earlier in July and June through partnerships with the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School.)
CD Review — Jupiter String Quartet: Metamorphosis
by Jarrett Hoffman
Occasionally, a performance or recording is so well-crafted that a critic feels compelled to put away their journalistic spectacles and their cool, distant approach and put on a giant foam hand. That was my experience with the Jupiter String Quartet’s new album, Metamorphosis, where the ensemble shows off all the special qualities that make their performances such a thrill to hear.
CD ReviewThe Cleveland Orchestra: A New Century, Vol. 3
by Jarrett Hoffman
A shared sense of the epic ties together the final two works of A New Century, the three-part live album from Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra that is also the ensemble’s inaugural release on its own record label.
We begin with the world premiere recording of Okeanos, Bernd Richard Deutsch’s concerto for organ and orchestra, featuring Paul Jacobs as soloist. The title refers not only to the Titan of Greek mythology, but also “to an idea of immense (and sometimes unfathomable) greatness and breadth, which conjures up in my mind the thought of the organ,” as Deutsch writes in his notes. [Read more…]
Roundtables discuss the black experience in music and how to make change
by Jarrett Hoffman
Two roundtable discussions this month — one with strong local ties, another that was more nationally oriented — were centered around the black experience in music and how administrators, educators, and other individuals in the field can join the fight for equality.
On Friday, June 19 (Juneteenth), fifteen recent Oberlin graduates and current students gathered over Zoom on the topic of “Black Voices in the Conservatory.” Presented by the Oberlin College Black Musicians’ Guild and moderated by Troy Stephenson, a 2020 graduate in viola performance, that discussion included perspectives from both the jazz and classical spheres.
Broadcast on social media by Young Concert Artists and The Violin Channel on Wednesday, June 10, “Learning to Listen” brought together twelve diversity advocates and classical musicians from across the country — soloists, orchestral players, chamber musicians, educators, composers, and administrators — including a few faces familiar to Northeast Ohio.
Pianist Michael Lu dedicates 5pm Series recital to racial justice
by Jarrett Hoffman
In response to current events, pianist Michael Lu will begin his free, live-streamed recital on the 5pm Series (Friday, June 19 at 5:00 on Facebook) with the Andante second movement of Florence Price’s Piano Sonata in e. He will then continue with his previously scheduled program: Liszt’s Rhapsodie Espagnole, Franck’s Prelude, Choral, et Fugue, and Beethoven’s Sonata No. 32 in c.
Lu is dedicating the concert to Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, “and every single member of the African-American community whose lives and futures were cut short because of the cruelty of a broken system that for centuries has failed them,” the pianist said during a recent conversation.
For every donation made to the 5pm Series for Lu’s concert, he will match it in giving up to a total of $200 to the NAACP. He will also donate all of his proceeds to the International Rescue Committee (35%), the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (30%), and back to the 5pm Series (35%) “to help increase the reach of their platform and support professional musicians during these difficult times with the coronavirus pandemic.”
Mark Kosower begins Trinity livestream series with Bach cello suites (June 5)
by Jarrett Hoffman
Cellist Mark Kosower has long believed that the music of J.S. Bach can bring people together. His live-streamed performance from Trinity Cathedral on Friday, June 5, revealed how deeply he feels about that: perhaps what was most healing was his passion itself. This was the first in a pair of concerts that Kosower will give at Trinity this summer with no audience present, covering all six of the composer’s solo cello suites under the banner of his project “Bach for Humanity.” On Saturday, he brought the odd-numbered works, playing from memory and starting with No. 5. Full of agony and desperation, its Prelude was a fitting way to begin. The Allemande stood out for its poetic flexibility, while the second Gavotte ran smooth, Kosower’s technique flowing easily.
Anthony McGill begins #TakeTwoKnees movement
by Jarrett Hoffman
In response to the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, and the killing of so many other black people in this country, clarinetist Anthony McGill has begun a call to action to #TakeTwoKnees “in the struggle for justice and decency.”
On Wednesday, May 27, the principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic posted to his Facebook page a powerful written message and a short video: his performance of a deeply sad arrangement of America the Beautiful. Since then, 70,000 people have watched that original video, and a countless number of musicians and other artists have responded by adding their voices in solidarity.
Hymns, spirituals, jazz, classical, folk songs, pop, new compositions, dance performances, visual art, or no art at all — the responses have been highly varied, though nearly all of them include the gesture of getting down on two knees in a moment of silence. The emotional experience of taking in these forms of expression cannot be put into words.
Classical music in a sitcom: NBC’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine
by Jarrett Hoffman
Here’s a trivia question: what current television series references Mahler, the oboe, and the recorder, and occasionally features one actor’s real operatic singing voice?
It might surprise you that the answer is a cop comedy — NBC’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which recently finished its seventh season and has been picked up for an eighth. The show is about the fictional 99th precinct in Brooklyn, NY, and the group of oddball police officers who work there, including two with a fondness for classical music.
One of them is Detective Norm Scully (played by Joel McKinnon Miller). He’s one of the two “magnificent oafs” of the precinct — a best-friend pairing of older cops whose main interests are greasy food and comfy chairs. But going against trope, Scully also sings opera.