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Cleveland Orchestra tackles Beethoven’s ‘Fateful Fifth’ with conductor Elim Chan, trumpeter Michael Sachs (Mar. 12)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The art of conducting is a kind of alchemy — the transformation of inert notes on a page into something vividly alive. A conductor absorbs a composer’s intentions, reimagines them, and releases them again through that remarkable instrument, the symphony orchestra. On a good night the music feels less reproduced than re-created, and the listener senses the thrill of discovery.

In her appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Music Center Thursday, March 12, conductor Elim Chan provided such an evening. She honored the distinct language of each score — Stravinsky’s refashioning of Baroque style in Pulcinella, Haydn’s elegant Trumpet Concerto with Michael Sachs as the eloquent soloist, and Beethoven’s enduring Fifth Symphony. But fidelity did not mean routine.

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Tuesday Musical hosts Marsalis-Mcallister-Ames Trio (Mar. 3)

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By Kevin McLaughlin

The Marsalis–McAllister–Ames Trio arrived at Akron’s E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall on March 3, with a program for Tuesday Musical that strolled through several musical neighborhoods — French impressionism, a touch of Scotland, American concert music, and Kansas City jazz. Branford Marsalis and Timothy McAllister handled the saxophones, Liz Ames the piano.

Between them, the saxophonists covered much of the instrument’s extended family, from baritone sax upward, switching horns as the repertoire required. For the first half, Marsalis stayed with the soprano — Coltrane’s instrument — which, in Marsalis’ hands, had a sweet, veiled quality that especially suited the program’s opening music.

Marsalis is widely known as a jazz musician, but he has long been at ease in classical repertoire as well — an aspect of his playing documented early on, as in his 1986 album Romances for Saxophone.

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Chatham Baroque at Rocky River Chamber Music Society (Mar. 2)

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By Kevin McLaughlin

The Rocky River Chamber Music Society welcomed the Pittsburgh-based early-music ensemble Chatham Baroque on Friday, March 2, for a program of 17th and 18th century sonatas from the German-speaking world.

Performed at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, the concert traced a path from the courts of Vienna and Salzburg to North German towns and, eventually to London. The three musicians played with distinction, vitality, and an easy rapport.

Founded in 1990, Chatham Baroque includes Andrew Fouts (violin), Patricia Halverson (viola da gamba), and Scott Pauley (archlute and theorbo). Even by period-instrument standards, the ensemble has a distinctive sound: violin and viola da gamba often share the lead, supported by the quiet plucked resonance of the lutes.

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Arts Renaissance Tremont: The Art of Influence (Mar. 1)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Arts Renaissance Tremont titled their program on Sunday, March 1 “The Art of Influence.” The premise was simple: students now fully launched into professional life performing beside the teachers who shaped them. It was partly debutante’s ball, partly show of pride.

Pilgrim Congregational UCC is a round room — its pews curve inward, the ceiling rises gently, and sound returns generously. On Sunday afternoon the space felt less like a sanctuary than a living room. Erica Brenner, president of ART, greeted the audience warmly, and artistic director Feza Zweifel served as a calm and appreciative emcee.

Cleveland Orchestra percussionists Thomas Sherwood and Tanner Tanyeri opened with Andy Akiho’s Karakurenai. Written for variable instrumentation and played here on orchestral bells (Sherwood) and vibraphone (Tanyeri), it’s a study in interlocking rhythm. As a duet, the piece becomes a test of alignment and nerve.

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Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, Youth Chorus shine in three grand works at Severance (Feb. 22)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and Youth Chorus filled Mandel Concert Hall on February 22 with music that asks for breadth of sound and steadiness of purpose. Under the direction of James Feddeck, the young musicians took on three grand and optimistic works: Camille Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3, “Organ,” Antonín Dvořák’s Te Deum, and Howard Hanson’s Song of Democracy. They met them well and, at key moments, with real poise.

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Oberlin Artist Recital Series: American Brass Quintet (Feb. 20)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

On Friday, February 20 in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel, the American Brass Quintet reasserted its long-standing theory that five brass instruments can sustain an evening with the seriousness of a string quartet.

The program calls them “the most distinguished” ensemble of its type —    and after Friday’s concert I’m inclined to believe it. Founded at Juilliard in 1960, when the brass quintet was still a recital novelty, the ABQ helped to expand the repertoire through commissioning new works and decades of touring.

For this program, they drew on repertory stretching from Elizabethan song to new American modernism.

The group — Tiago Linck and Brandon Ridenour (trumpets), Eric Reed (horn), Hillary Simms (trombone), and John D. Rojak (bass trombone) — began the program four centuries back with two pieces by John Dowland, the English lutenist whose songs of melancholy were heard in courts and taverns alike.

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Barbara Hannigan goes all-American with The Cleveland Orchestra (Feb. 12)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Conductor Barbara Hannigan brought an unusual playlist to her appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra on Thursday evening February 12: music by four American composers who rarely share a stage, and who have very different ideas about what American music sounds like.

The Severance Music Center program was a sequence of sharply defined pieces, each showing a different side of American music — experimental, modernist, lyrical, and theatrical. And in Hannigan’s expressive hands, those contrasts felt intentional and well placed.

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Imani Winds & Boston Brass at Tuesday Musical (Feb. 10)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

On the cold Tuesday evening of February 10, two venerable ensembles — the Imani Winds and Boston Brass —  were brought together by Akron’s Tuesday Musical in E.J. Thomas Hall. The large audience was ready for something lively, and the players obliged, spending the better part of two hours passing enthralling music back and forth.

Outfitted in blue jackets, Boston Brass — José Sibaja and Jeff Conner (trumpets), Chris Castellanos (horn), Domingo Pagliuca (trombone), and William Russell (tuba) — introduced pieces and corrected each other’s pronunciation with good humor. “You may be wondering how guys in those jackets get work,” Conner quipped. José Sibaja, who grew up in Puerto Rico, took particular care with Spanish names, and was playfully merciless when his colleagues missed a vowel.

Dmitri Shostakovich’s Galop, one of the composer’s theater pieces from the 1930s, was up first. Articulation stayed clean even at the fast tempo, and the group reveled in the music’s dry humor. Sibaja and Conner impressed with their technical ease, while Pagliuca and Russell kept things grounded.

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No Exit Presents: LIGAMENT (Feb. 7)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

As is often the case, the February 7 No Exit Presents concert featuring LIGAMENT demanded close attention.

The modest forces and the intimate setting of Praxis Fiber Workshop placed the focus squarely on vocalist Anika Kildegaard and bassist Will Yager, in a program of works by Stefano Pierini, Ruby Fulton, James Dillon, Amy Beth Kirsten, and Katherine Balch. The duo, careful shapers of sound, drew listeners into worlds that were by turns surprising, unsettling, and utterly absorbing.

The evening opened with a brief set by the Cleveland State University Percussion Ensemble, led by Katalin La Favre, establishing the concert’s emphasis on quiet listening. With the lights lowered, the first of three works — a solo for acquarian — introduced a xylophone-adjacent instrument with glass bars mounted on a wood and stone frame. Without resonators, the instrument’s sound remained hushed, rarely rising above mezzo piano. Colored light shining from beneath the instrument lent the scene a dusky, piano-bar atmosphere.

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CityMusic Cleveland: American Dreams (Feb. 5)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Stop the presses! Half of the originally advertised program will be different, CityMusic’s managing director Henry Peyrebrune announced prior to their February 5 concert at Fairmount Presbyterian. Works by Elliott Carter and John Coltrane were postponed for another day and replaced by gentler pieces by Alan Hovhaness and Henry Cowell.

Taken as a whole, America @ 250: American Dreams, centered on a question shared by many American composers in the mid-twentieth century: how to write music that feels rooted, timeless, and personal without leaning too heavily on European models. The answers varied widely, from Ernest Bloch’s consciously historical gestures to Copland’s open, optimistic language.

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