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ChamberFest Cleveland: “Inventions of Memory” (June 27)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

ChamberFest Cleveland’s June 27 program, “Inventions of Memory,” offered three distinct meditations on musical remembrance. Presented in the tranquil setting of Harkness Chapel at Case Western Reserve University, eight of the festival’s standout artists illuminated works by Claude Debussy, Brett Dean, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

The program opened with Debussy’s Trois Chansons de Bilitis, a cycle of idealized and slightly prurient visions of antiquity. Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron and pianist Roman Rabinovich offered a reading attuned to the music’s erotic undertow and bathed in Lydian and whole-tone harmonies.

In La Flûte de Pan, Rabinovich’s shimmering textures evoked the strumming of a lyre as Barron spun out the tale of a young girl’s intimate flute lesson. Her voice, pliant and sumptuous, moved easily between innocence and seduction.
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ChamberFest Cleveland: “Starry Night” (June 21)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

On June 21, ChamberFest Cleveland presented “Starry Night” at Federated Church in Chagrin Falls. The program’s nocturnal theme included works by ChamberFest composer-in- residence Errollyn Wallen, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Arnold Schoenberg.

The performance of Wallen’s Dervish for cello and piano was spellbinding. Like a trained actor, cellist Oliver Herbert took on a distinct persona: intensely expressive, earthy, and rapturous. Pianist Roman Rabinovich was not merely a counterpart, but a force that Herbert seemed at times either to resist or to be swept up by. Together, the duo sustained an inward intensity that made Wallen’s music feel at once intimate, expansive, and hypnotic.

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Ohio Light Opera: George & Ira Gershwin’s Tip-Toes (June 26)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

On a sunny Thursday afternoon in Wooster on June 26, Ohio Light Opera’s revival of the Gershwin brothers’ Tip-Toes (1925) made its premiere during a carefree two hours at the College of Wooster’s Freedlander Theatre.

Director Jacob Allen embraced the show’s silliness — mistaken identities, romantic mix-ups, and a heroine with amnesia — while keeping the action kinetic and the comedy light on its feetThe production succeeds due to excellent staging and choreography, but also thanks to sharp acting, nimble dancing, heartfelt singing, and general razzle-dazzle. Proof that even the more neglected musicals of the Jazz Age can still charm a modern audience. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Variations on Love and Loss” (June 20) 

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by Kevin McLaughlin

At the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall on Friday, June 20, ChamberFest Cleveland presented “Variations on Love and Loss.” Complemented by a friendly acoustical space and a convivial throng, the program spanned a wide emotional range, from deep grief to luminous joy.

Witold Lutosławski and fellow composer Andrzej Panufnik originally performed Lutosławski’s Paganini Variations in cafés around Warsaw during the German occupation of Poland in World War II, where public concerts were banned.

The duo wrote it partly to showcase their talents, and pianists James (Zijian) Wei and Roman Rabinovich brought fearless bravura to the work. The performers tore through each variation, trading volleys of octaves and whiplash runs. It was part sorcery, part acrobatic display — and entirely exhilarating. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Reflections” at Church of the Saviour (June 13)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The second program of ChamberFest Cleveland’s 2025 season, titled “Reflections,” offered a varied but carefully sequenced triptych, was presented on June 13 at Church of the Saviour in Cleveland Heights. Works by Arvo Pärt, Anton Arensky, and Camille Saint-Saëns captivated with a blend of suspended time, remembrance, and fervent sweep.

Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel (“Mirror[s] in the Mirror”) was a remarkable opener, drawing violinist Gabrielle Després and pianist Michael Stephen Brown into a meditative dialogue and listeners into a quasi-hypnotic state. Després’s playing was austere and strangely luminous — testaments to her musical imagination and steady bow arm. She beautifully shaped each phrase — sharpening the listeners’ focus and slowing the collective pulse. Brown’s piano triads resonated with bell-like purity, so finely braided with Després’s lines that the effect was clairvoyant. As each violin note faded, the piano gently cued the next — gestures mirroring one another like eternal reflections in glass.

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Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival: recitals by the Patterson-Sutton Duo & Jason Vieaux (June 6 & 7)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival just keeps getting better and better. For 2025, there are masterclasses, lectures, a youth competition, guitar-maker showcases, and several headliner recitals by guitar royalty — a heady blend, whether you’re a die-hard or a casual listener. The concerts were held in the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall, an acoustic and sensory jewel of a room to hear music in, especially the soft-spoken kind.

On Friday June 6, cellist Kimberly Patterson and guitarist Patrick Sutton — the Patterson-Sutton Duo — offered a varied and vivid program, moving easily from the folk-infused music of Wales to more contemporary sounds. Their taut and expressive playing balanced the program’s strands of tradition and invention.

Stephen Goss’s Welsh Folk Songs, a suite of six traditional melodies arranged for cello and guitar, opened the program. The work communicates the rich folk heritage of Wales and allowed both instrumentalists to evoke a world of fable and memory.

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No Exit enthralls with works by The Collective (May 28)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

On Wednesday, May 28, a collaboration between No Exit and The Collective at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium testified to the merits of exploring fresh musical terrain — in the end offering rewards for both the sympathetic listener and those less easily persuaded.

After a brief welcome by CMA Performing Arts Director Gabe Pollack, the lights lowered and a short black and white film starring Timothy Beyer’s head — not an AI stand-in, he insisted — introduced the concert.

The Collective is an international group of composers who have banded together to facilitate performances of their work. No Exit, Cleveland’s independent new music ensemble, occasionally performs The Collective’s  music, as they did spectacularly on Wednesday. In June, the two organizations will embark on a two-week European tour that will include stops in Greece, Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands.

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Cleveland Orchestra Opera & Humanities Festival: Moth Mainstage (May 16)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The Cleveland Orchestra’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival opened on May 16 with The Moth Mainstage: Live from Severance, an evening of true, personal storytelling centered on the theme of reconciliation.

Presented in partnership with Ideastream Public Media, the show marked The Moth’s first live appearance in Cleveland. Founded in 1997 in New York City, The Moth is a nonprofit celebrating “the art of true, personal storytelling.” It produces hundreds of live events annually across the U.S. and abroad, including the widely popular podcast The Moth Radio Hour. [Read more…]

CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra at Fairmount Presbyterian (May 15)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

In a 1902 interview, Gabriel Fauré, who spent much of his career as an organist, said his goal in writing his Requiem was to stray from the established path, “after all those years accompanying funerals.” So, rather than ending with the horror of a Dies irae, he chose In Paradisum instead.

On Thursday, May 15, at Fairmount Presbyterian Church, CityMusic Cleveland delivered both heaven and earth over the course of a diverse program. Responding to conductor Lorenzo Lopez’s assured direction, the ensemble gave sympathetic readings of William Grant Still’s Danzas de Panama and Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas, then ascended to a higher place in Fauré’s Requiem, aided by superb singing from soprano Chabrelle Williams, baritone Edward Vogel, and the CityMusic Community Choir.

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Evgeny Kissin mesmerizes with Bach, Chopin, and Shostakovich at Severance (May 7)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Few pianists today elicit the kind of eager expectation, borne of star-power and reputation, that Evgeny Kissin does the moment he takes the stage. There is a quality to his presence — austere and shy yet fully possessed — that electrifies a listener before a single note sounds. In Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center on Wednesday evening, May 7, Kissin’s program of J.S. Bach, Chopin, and Shostakovich, plus encores, had something to satisfy every fan’s wish.

Bach’s Partita No. 2 in C minor began the evening on low heat, with an understated approach to the Sinfonia‘s long, elegant lines. But it wasn’t until the final Capriccio that the pianist’s rhythmic and technical polish fully enlivened Bach’s polyphony without diminishing its architectural integrity.

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