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Akron Symphony: “Verdi and Valkyries”

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by Jarrett Hoffman

“Verdi and Wagner together represent the pinnacle of the high Romantic age in music, and both were masters of drama,” Akron Symphony music director Christopher Wilkins says in a video on the ASO’s YouTube channel.

Those two composers will find themselves paired in a program titled “Verdi and Valkyries,” to be performed by the Akron Symphony and Chorus on Friday, November 16 at 8:00 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall.

Another pairing: Wilkins and chorus director Marie Bucoy-Calavan, who will trade off conducting duties throughout the evening. Bucoy-Calavan will handle much of the first half, comprising Verdi’s Overture to La forza del destino, the Overture and “Va, pensiero” from Nabucco, the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore, and the Ballet and Triumphal March from Aïda.

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COYO: a conversation with concerto competition co-winner Célina Béthoux

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by Jarrett Hoffman

There are certain people in the world who amaze you with how deeply they feel about what they do. After my recent telephone conversation with fourteen-year-old violinist Célina Béthoux, I can say that she’s one of them.

A member of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, Béthoux is also a co-winner of its 2018 concerto competition. That’s earned her a solo appearance in the Samuel Barber Concerto during the ensemble’s 8:00 pm concert this Friday, November 16 at Severance Hall, led by music director Vinay Parameswaran.

And it might be what Béthoux says, or maybe it’s something that comes across in her voice, but it’s clear that her interest in classical music isn’t at all obligatory, self-important, or resumé-stuffing. It’s just love.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: Joshua Smith rediscovers Goethe via Pintscher

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by Mike Telin

Last week, the conductor Matthias Pintscher led The Cleveland Orchestra in works by Rachmaninoff and Bartók. This week, music by the composer Matthias Pintscher will be featured when principal flute Joshua Smith gives the U.S. premiere of Pintscher’s Transir for flute and orchestra.

The program, under the direction of Alain Altinoglu, will also include a Suite drawn by the conductor from Debussy’s opera Pelléas and Mélisande, and Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole, Pavane for a Dead Princess, and Boléro.

The concerts take place on Thursday, November 8 at 7:30 pm, Friday the 9th at 11:00 am (no Pintscher), and Saturday the 10th at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

Pintscher wrote the concerto for Emmanuel Pahud, principal flute of the Berlin Philharmonic, who described the piece as “the most avant-garde work I have played so far, in terms of all the special effects required and how to synchronize them with the orchestra.”

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Cleveland Chamber Music Society to welcome the Ehnes Quartet

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by Mike Telin

The Cleveland Chamber Music Society will continue its season on Tuesday, November 13 when they welcome the Ehnes Quartet — James Ehnes and Amy Schwartz Moretti, violins, Richard O’Neill, viola, and Edward Arron, cello.

The 7:30 pm concert at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights will include Haydn’s Quartet in G, Op. 76, No. 1, Elgar’s Quartet in e, and Bartók’s Quartet No. 5. A pre-concert lecture by Richard Rodda will begin at 6:30 pm. Tickets are available online.

During an email exchange, Amy Schwartz Moretti said that as a proud graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, to be able to bring her colleagues to the place that was so formative in her life means a lot to her. She fondly remembers the “wonderful teaching and influence of the Weilersteins, Cavani Quartet, Peter Salaff, and all the amazing teachers who were there during that time. I love every opportunity to come back to Cleveland! It has been especially meaningful to come back for ChamberFest Cleveland each summer and I’m so thankful to the Cleveland Chamber Music Society for inviting my quartet.”  

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CIM Opera Theater: Chatting with Dean Southern about two short operas

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by Jarrett Hoffman

The template for a good opera, according to Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges: fewer humans, more furniture.

The character list begins with a mischievous child and his mom, but soon branches out to include armchairs, a bench, a couch, a stool, a wicker chair, and a grandfather clock. Then the kitchenware, plants, and animals enter the fray.

But are singers okay with being cast as armchairs? That’s one of many questions I recently got to ask Dean Southern, head of the voice and opera division at the Cleveland Institute of Music. We spoke by phone about CIM Opera Theater’s upcoming double-bill, L’Enfant and Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol — a fascinating work in its own right, and more rarely heard than the already uncommon Ravel.

Performances will take place in CIM’s Kulas Hall from Wednesday through Friday, November 7-9 at 7:30 pm, and on Saturday, November 10 at 3:00 pm. Harry Davidson will lead the CIM Orchestra, which will appear in size XL, thanks to the extensive instrumental colors called for by Ravel and Stravinsky.

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BlueWater Chamber Orchestra: 15 minutes with oboist Martin Neubert

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by Jarrett Hoffman

If you’ve been to an orchestra concert in the area over the last 26 years, you’ve probably heard Martin Neubert’s playing.

Since receiving his master’s from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1992, the oboist has become a mainstay of the region’s music scene. He’s principal of the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, Warren Philharmonic, and Opera Western Reserve, and second in the Cleveland Pops Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Symphony. On top of that, he’s substituted with The Cleveland Orchestra, and performed with the symphonies of Akron, Canton, and Youngstown.

In short, he’s been around.

This weekend, Neubert will step out from the BlueWater ranks to perform as soloist, joining guest conductor Tiffany Chang for her debut with the Orchestra. The program is titled “Opulent Oboe and Scintillating Symphony” — the opulence coming from German-American composer Lukas Foss’s Concerto, the scintillation from Haydn’s Symphony No. 103 in E-flat, “Drumroll.” Apologies to Beethoven for missing out on the fun adjectives, but his Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43 should make for a strong opener.

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Good Company: “Weekend with Composer Ola Gjeilo”

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by Jarrett Hoffman

When a composer-pianist like Ola Gjeilo lists people who have inspired them, names like Keith Jarrett, Philip Glass, and Howard Shore — all Gjeilo favorites — aren’t surprising to hear.

But Dale Chihuly and Frank Gehry — a glass artist and an architect?

“I’m always inspired by artists that have an improvisational approach, which they both do,” Gjeilo said during a recent telephone conversation. “Their process seems very intuitive — kind of feeling its way through what works and what doesn’t. And that’s similar to my approach as a composer. It’s not necessarily very cerebral or intellectual with a lot of pre-planned parameters. It usually comes out of improvising ideas and building on them — I like the fluidity of that process.”

This weekend, Good Company: A Vocal Ensemble will welcome the Norwegian-born, New York City-based Gjeilo for two events at Lakewood Presbyterian Church. First, a choral workshop on Saturday, November 3 at 3:00 pm that’s free and open to anyone with an interest in choral singing techniques, Gjeilo’s music, and his creative process.

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Gregg Kallor’s setting of The Tell-Tale Heart to open Tuesday Musical Fuze Series

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by Jarrett Hoffman

When Halloween is on a Wednesday, it’s only right to celebrate it all week, and on the two weekends that fall on either side. That applies to arts organizations as well: the schedule of the musically spooky continues on Saturday, November 3 at 7:30 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron, when this year’s Tuesday Musical Fuze Series gets under way.

At the heart of the program is Gregg Kallor’s setting of a classic story which recently turned 175 years old: Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. (Quick refresher for those with only vague memories of high school: the narrator hears the sound of a beating heart coming from under the floorboards…and it’s the heart of the person they’ve murdered under mysterious, grisly circumstances.)

Kallor will take the keyboard part in the Poe setting, joined by cellist Joshua Roman and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano. They’ll mix and match each other throughout the program, which also includes music by Brahms, Schumann, Hugo Wolf, and John Jacob Niles, in addition to further works by Kallor. Tickets are available online.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: a conversation with Ingo Metzmacher

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by Mike Telin

Good things come to those who wait. And when German conductor Ingo Metzmacher returns to the Severance Hall podium on Thursday, October 25 at 7:30 pm, he will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a program he has been waiting to conduct for a very long time.

“When we agreed that Christian Tetzlaff would play the Berg Violin Concerto, I thought — here’s my chance,” Metzmacher said during a telephone conversation. “I said, how about combining that with the Webern Passacaglia, which is a wonderful piece, and Schoenberg’s Pelléas and Mélisande after intermission? And they accepted. I’m thrilled because it’s been a dream of mine to combine these pieces into one program.” Metzmacher’s “dream program” will be repeated on Saturday, October 27 at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

While all three works are by composers of the Second Viennese School, a group that comprised Schoenberg along with his students and associates, Metzmacher noted that Pelléas (1903) and the Passacaglia (1908) were both written before those composers had abandoned Romanticism. “They come from before the break so to speak,” he said. “Both pieces end in d minor, so there is a link from the first to the last piece on the program.”

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CIM New Music Ensemble to celebrate “L’Histoire at 100”
with new film by Kasumi

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by Jarrett Hoffman

There’s nothing quite like Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale. And there will really be nothing like the performance this Friday, October 26 at 8:00 pm in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

The conservatory’s New Music Ensemble, directed by Keith Fitch, will celebrate the 100th birthday of that classic work with the premiere of a new film: a commission from Cleveland-based video artist Kasumi, to be played simultaneously with the music. (The concert is free, and will also be live-streamed.)

And if you’re at all familiar with the work of Kasumi, you know you’re in for a fascinating, perhaps harrowing ride.

The trailer gives a taste of her style, in which she splices together images from mid-century B-movies, commercials, and training films from the public domain — images which are “completely direct,” as Kasumi told us during an interview last year. “The acting is so bad and corny that it conveys emotion in shorthand — it becomes a symbol, like a stop sign. If you weave together these tiny gestures, you get all kinds of nuances of emotion.”

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