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Zimmermann Remembered (Sept. 10)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The late Gerhardt Zimmermann was remembered with affection by family and friends in a concert given by the Canton Symphony Orchestra at Umstaddt Hall on Sunday, September 10.

Former conducting students and colleagues took turns at the podium, and soloists whose careers Zimmermann had touched also took part in a program of works by Mahler, Brahms, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky, among others.

Possibly the most shining example of Zimmermann’s legacy is the orchestra that he developed and led for 43 years. In an age of peripatetic conductors and short-lived musical directorships, the Canton Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble of ninety mostly young professionals, has remained remarkably excellent and intact over the years.

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Simone Lamsma brings Saint-Saëns violin concerto to Blossom Music Center (Aug. 26)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The Cleveland Orchestra’s final classical concert at Blossom Music Center on Saturday, like the last rose of summer, was the unexpected apogee of the season. Transforming a generic-sounding program titled “Impressions of France and Spain,” conductor Fabien Gabel captivated in works of Ravel, de Falla, and Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3, with which soloist Simone Lamsma won everyone’s heart.

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Audra McDonald teams up with The Cleveland Orchestra for a glorious tour of the Great American Songbook (Aug 13)

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This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

(Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

by Kevin McLaughlin

If there is a more complete singing-and-acting talent than Audra McDonald, I can’t think of one. For a generation she has poured her heart out and done so with such vocal and dramatic authority it is difficult to imagine what we did before she came along. The near-capacity crowd at Blossom Music Center on Sunday was treated to a delightful program of Broadway standards and unguarded reflections on life and living.   [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera:
Arizona Lady (July 6)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The variety of titles that make up Ohio Light Opera’s annual summer series is its secret sauce. Go to a few shows and you’re bound to find something you’ll like, or maybe in this case a dark horse to love. Emmerich Kálmán’s Arizona Lady is an unknown in these parts — an OLO premiere this summer, which I heard on July 6 at Freedlander Theatre. It stumbles a little at times, but in the end she’s a winner.

Kálmán, who was born in Hungary, always sounds middle European to me, no matter the setting of a particular show or scene. Though the music and setting in Arizona Lady occasionally seem at odds, it’s fun to hear Hungarian-tinged folksong one minute, Viennese tradition the next, and Western cowboy songs the next.

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The Cleveland Orchestra & Blossom Festival Chorus (July 1)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Undeterred by clouds in the sky, The Cleveland Orchestra let joy prevail on opening night of the 2023 Blossom Music Festival on Saturday, July 1. Somehow the weather held, families gathered, blankets came out, and Beethoven’s jubilant message issued forth.

Susanna Mälkki was a persuasive presence on the podium, leading the orchestra, the Blossom Festival Chorus, and soloists in music by William Grant Still, Samuel Barber, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Still’s “Mother and Child,” a slow movement from his 1943 Suite for Violin and Piano here arranged by the composer for string orchestra, is a soft and sincere work alluding to folk song. Under Mälkki’s direction, the strings gave a beautifully timbred, reverential reading.

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ChamberFest Cleveland:
“Es muss sein” — it must be (June 29)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Fate — as represented by “Es muss sein” (it must be), Beethoven’s enigmatic motto tucked in the last movement of the String Quartet No. 16 in F — was the guiding light for ChamberFest’s program on Thursday evening, June 29 at CIM’s Mixon Hall. A passage from Milan Kundera’s book The Unbearable Lightness of Being was read aloud by co-artistic director Roman Rabinovich, who went on to explain the text’s Beethoven reference and how it aligns with the Festival’s overall Lightness theme. In addition to the Beethoven, works included Lera Auerbach’s compact Piano Trio No. 1 and the monumental Piano Quintet by Sergey Taneyev.

What seems by now to be ChamberFest’s “inevitability” of excellence also played a role. Like some sort of magic trick, each disparately assembled group — mostly made up of musicians who don’t frequently play together — conjured miracles of coalescence in every work.

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ChamberFest Cleveland: “Karenin’s Smile” (June 16)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

After the seriousness and communal pall brought on by the COVID pandemic, this year’s ChamberFest is asserting “Lightness of Being” as a theme, inspired by Milan Kundera’s 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. In the second concert of the Festival, titled “Karenin’s Smile,” works by Mozart, Janáček, and Saint-Saëns were appropriately buoyant and cheerful, thrilling those gathered at Cleveland’s St. Wendelin Church on June 16.

Mozart wrote two of his six so-called “viola quintets” in 1787 in close succession — one in C major, one in G minor. The C major, with its more amiable and optimistic disposition, was a fitting choice on Friday evening.

Cellist Jonathan Swensen opened with a puckish rising arpeggiated triad, which first violinist David Bowlin answered with equally cheeky delight. The wide-ranging motive hinted at the movement’s dimensions (a good fifteen minutes long), and the violin answer set the bantering pattern. Bowlin made a fine leader, acquitting himself in both Allegro movements with mirthful virtuosity.

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Ohio Light Opera: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (June 15)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

How to explain the pleasure of Ohio Light Opera’s production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which opened on June 15 at Freedlander Theatre? With music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, it’s a good-natured romp from the Mad Men milieu of the early 1960s that tries not to recall the bad old days too clearly, or to at least do it in jest. With an excellent cast, sets, and costumes, it’s hard not to have a good time with this production directed by Jacob Allen. I did, even if some of the old-fashioned attitudes rankled a little.

You might suspect that How to Succeed, which won the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for drama, had been ahead of its time, shining a light as it did on the bad behavior of get-ahead businessmen. Nah… Some of the more obvious sexist jokes and lyrics of the original may have been toned down for this production, but a lot of the caddishness remains, even if obviously intended as a send-up.

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Re:Sound New and Experimental Music Festival (June 11)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project hosted its annual Re:Sound New and Experimental Music Festival June 8-11 at various Cleveland venues. I was lucky enough to catch the final two performances on Sunday afternoon at the Convivium 33 Art Gallery.

Pakistani-born Zeerak Ahmed, who performs under the name SLOWSPIN, and trumpeter Theresa May each held the audience in thrall in programs of live music interacting with pre-recorded sounds.

Ahmed’s music is mesmerizing. She sings with devotional yearning, eyes closed, left arm raised, and in perpetual movement, dancing out meanings of the words. Her songs are in English but also Urdu, Farsi, and Purbi. Whether or not words are understood, deeply felt emotion always cuts through. [Read more…]

ENCORE: Cavani String Quartet & Mwatabu Okantah (June 10)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Music and poetry augmented one another on Saturday, June 10 at the Akron Public Library.

This much-anticipated concert on the ENCORE Chamber Music Institute series featured the impeccable playing of the Cavani String Quartet and infectious recitations by Mwatabu Okantah, poet and Professor of Pan-African Studies at Kent State University. Alongside standard repertory, the Cavani performed several Americana-inflected string quartets to the words of Okantah, providing a moving amalgam of words and music.

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