by Kevin McLaughlin
On Friday, April 24 at Severance Music Center, the Cleveland Pops Orchestra played to a packed house with a program devoted to John Williams and Steven Spielberg — a partnership that reliably fills seats. Williams writes themes you can recognize in seconds, sometimes in two notes.
Carl Topilow made that point before the first downbeat. “Ladies and gentlemen — the two notes that changed the course of music history,” he said, letting Jaws swim in with low strings, and a steady pulse, the interval repeating then tightening like a screw.
From there, the program moved among Williams’ familiar modes. The “March from 1941” had a buoyant snap. Close Encounters offered short, bright phrases, almost conversational. And in Jurassic Park, the orchestra leaned into the composer’s gift for breadth.
Not all of Williams’ music trades in spectacle. As the New York Times has noted, it often works by taking older materials and presenting them in technicolor. The themes of Schindler’s List are spare and direct, the emotion carried by contour and tone rather than overt passion.
On Saturday evening, April 11, David Russell — the renowned Scotsman who makes his home in Spain — walked onto the stage of the Maltz Performing Arts Center, and with a shy smile and wave, set about performing wonders on his instrument for the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society.
The Cleveland Composers Guild marked the approaching 250th anniversary of the United States on Thursday evening, March 19, at Saint Francis Chapel of John Carroll University with American Mosaic. Faculty performers from JCU joined the university’s Wind Ensemble in a program that paired familiar American fare with recent works by Guild composers — an odd patchwork of band music, art song, and new vocal works that surprised but ultimately pleased.
