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Blossom: Cristian Măcelaru on conducting, posterity, and socially conscious music

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Macelaru

At seventeen, Cristian Măcelaru wanted to conduct. First he had to wait.

‘Keep studying violin, then we’ll talk’ was the message from conductor Larry Rachleff, who had inspired Măcelaru’s new interest at Interlochen Arts Camp.

The young violinist took the advice to heart. Now, two decades later, he’s Music Director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music; has served as Conductor-in-Residence, Associate, and Assistant Conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra; and has led subscription concerts with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and Los Angeles Philharmonic.

And on Saturday, August 26 at 8:00 pm, he’ll make his Cleveland Orchestra debut at Blossom Music Center with a program of Dvořák’s Violin Concerto and Holst’s The Planets. “I’m extremely humbled to conduct this orchestra that I’ve admired for my entire life,” he said in a recent conversation.

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TCO at Blossom: 30 minutes with conductor Fabien Gabel and pianist Juho Pohjonen

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Pohjonen-GabelThis weekend’s schedule at Blossom sports a fresh pair of Cleveland Orchestra debuts. On Saturday, August 19 at 8:00 pm at Blossom Music Center, Fabien Gabel, music director of the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, will lead TCO in Ravel’s Boléro, Debussy’s Ibéria, Florent Schmitt’s La Palais Hanté, and Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1, featuring Juho Pohjonen. We spoke to the French conductor and the Finnish pianist in separate conversations — Gabel was spending time in New York City with his family, while Pohjonen was in Bridgehampton, NY, for his tenth festival of the summer.

As they get to know Northeast Ohio, the two stars of the program will also be getting to know each other. They’ve never performed together, though Gabel said he had the pleasure to hear Pohjonen play a recital in Paris. “He’s played chamber music with some friends of mine, so I know him through them,” said the conductor. “He’s a fantastic musician, so I’m really looking forward to making music with him.”

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ChamberFest: Josef Špaček on music, travel, and social media

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Josef-Špaček-by-©-Radovan-Subin-4ChamberFest Cleveland brings a new face to town this week. Making his Cleveland debut on Thursday, June 29, violinist Josef Špaček will play three concerts in three days, performing works by Schnittke, Strauss, Mozart, and Dvořák as he helps bring the 2017 edition of ChamberFest to a close.

Born in Třebíč, Czech Republic, Josef Špaček has been concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic since 2011 and was named Associate Artist by the orchestra in 2016. A graduate of Juilliard, Curtis, and the Prague Conservatory, he was a laureate of the International Queen Elisabeth Competition, and won top prizes at the Michael Hill and Carl Nielsen International Violin Competitions. As a soloist, he has performed with such ensembles as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, and Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg.

Špaček picked up the phone after wiping away the tears of his 9-month-old daughter and getting her to bed. “She’s asleep now, but one never knows. Babies kind of wake up any time they want,” he said with his trademark laugh. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland’s Kafka Fragments to feature filmmaker Kasumi

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Kasumi-Web“I don’t know what my brain knows,” says filmmaker Kasumi in her 2015 TEDx talk Portrait of the Artist as a Young Meme. “One tiny stimulus fuels infinite branches, reactions, associations…if we were consciously aware of everything we came in contact with, we would explode, or go crazy. I became an artist…and technology is the hammer I use to open the universe of memory.”

On Tuesday, June 20 at 6:30 and 8:30 pm at Transformer Station, ChamberFest Cleveland will present a new perspective on Kafka Fragments, György Kurtág’s hour-long work for solo violin and voice. The piece draws on excerpts from the Prague-born author’s notebooks, diaries, and letters. Joining mezzo-soprano Lauren Eberwein and the tag-teaming duo of violinists Alexi Kenney and Yura Lee will be 2011 Guggenheim Fellow and Cleveland-based filmmaker Kasumi, whose digital imagery fragments were commissioned by the Festival.

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Guitarist Colin Davin and harpist Emily Levin to close out CICGF 2017

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Davin_Levin“Guitar and harp is such a rare, unique combination,” said guitarist Colin Davin in a recent conversation. “To the extent that there’s an epicenter for that kind of duo, it might be Cleveland. Jason Vieaux and Yolanda Kondonassis have performed and recorded an album together, and in the past few years, some of the students here have formed guitar and harp duos. We like to think we’re starting something that will catch on.”

On Sunday, June 11 at 7:30 pm in the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall, Colin Davin and harpist Emily Levin will close out the 2017 Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival with a duo recital featuring a world premiere by Dylan Mattingly and a recent work by Will Stackpole, with the Duo’s own arrangements of works by Maurice Ravel and Manuel de Falla as bookends. [Read more…]

Jason Vieaux to open CICGF with solo recital June 9

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Vieaux-(Tyler-Boye)Needing an encore for a concert the next day, guitarist Jason Vieaux woke up in Boston to a mild earthquake, turned on the TV to an Obama-Romney presidential debate, and thought to himself: Everybody Wants to Rule the World.

Ten minutes later, his guitar-accordina arrangement of Tears for Fears’ popular song was born. He and Julien Labro would rehearse it the next morning for fifteen minutes before performing it on WGBH and again that night in Roxbury. “We thought, it’ll really get it ready for the concert if we play it live on the radio,” Vieaux said with a laugh during a recent conversation. “It was kind of crazy, but things happen that way. It came out of professional necessity.”

The arrangement would go on to close out the duo’s 2014 Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival performance and cap off their 2016 album Infusion — which also includes works by Piazzolla, Metheny, and Brouwer.

For the 2017 edition of CICGF, the Grammy Award-winning Jason Vieaux is taking things in a different direction. On Friday, June 9 at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall, he will open the Festival with a solo program of Sor, Bach, Ponce, Ginastera, and Morel.

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French dances and more: “Toutes Suites” with Les Délices on LCCC Signature Series (September 24)

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by Nicholas Jones

Les-Delices-092415On Thursday the distinguished Cleveland-based group Les Délices, which specializes in French music of the 18th century, gave the first concert in this year’s Signature Series at Lorain County Community College’s Cirigliano Theater. With this performance, the series, which is curated by LCCC Distinguished Professor and composer Jeffrey Mumford and mostly presents new music, took a plunge into early music. Lully is a far cry from Ligeti, but maybe baroque is the new avant-garde?

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Cleveland Orchestra Summers@Severance with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski (Aug. 7)

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by Robert Rollin

Skrowaczeswki

On August 7th, the second concert in this season’s Summers@Severance series marked guest conductor Stanislaw Skrowaczewski’s return to Cleveland. Drinks on Severance Hall’s lovely Front Terrace in the waning afternoon sun provided an excellent prelude to a fine musical event, of which Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 was the centerpiece. Skrowaczewski, now 91 years old, knew the composer personally, and on Friday evening he shepherded the Orchestra through a stunning performance of the work.

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Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom with Gustavo Gimeno & Garrick Ohlsson (Aug. 8)

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by Timothy Robson

smaller Gustavo Gimeno 36, Photo by Marco BorggreveSpanish conductor Gustavo Gimeno made his American debut on Saturday evening at Blossom, but he is far from an orchestral neophyte. Gimeno has come under the tutelage of Mariss Jansons and Claudio Abbado, and in the 2015-16 season he will become chief conductor of the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra.

He seems to be working his way up the ladder through engagements with European regional orchestras, so this “one-off” debut concert with The Cleveland Orchestra — undoubtedly with very limited rehearsal time — put him under a laser light in three masterworks: Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 2 and Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor,” with the esteemed Garrick Ohlsson as soloist, and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8. [Read more…]

James Feddeck returns to conduct The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom on August 15

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by Mike Telin

smaller - 027 (v2) final - credit Benjamin Ealovega

“It feels like a long time, but it’s only been just under two years since I left The Cleveland Orchestra in September of 2013,” former assistant conductor James Feddeck said in a recent telephone conversation. “While it’s been a whirlwind, I’ve had so many wonderful experiences to make music. I think I’ve worked with about forty orchestras during that time, and it’s been inspiring for me to be able to conduct repertoire in all of those different places. But it’s equally exciting to be able to come back to The Cleveland Orchestra. I have to say that I’m really looking forward to this program at Blossom.”

On Saturday, August 15 at 8:00 pm, Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma will join Feddeck and the Orchestra for the Tchaikovsky concerto in a program that begins with Carl Maria von Weber’s Euryanthe Overture and concludes with Jan Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5.

[Read more…]

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