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No Exit: season highlights at Heights Arts (May 13)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

No Exit gave another of their enticing concerts on Saturday in one of Cleveland’s friendliest of venues, the Heights Arts Gallery on Lee Road. Highlighting selections from the ensemble’s 2022-2023 season, the May 13 program featured music for solo clarinet, string duo, and percussion, all written during the last two decades or so.

If there was anything to complain about, it was the loud air fan in the gallery ceiling that just…never…stopped. The lasting impression of this No Exit concert, however, was of interesting new works played by musicians who really knew what they were doing.

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Cleveland Women’s Orchestra shines in music by White, Sibelius & Dvořák (Apr. 30) 

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by Kevin McLaughlin

In 1993 Dolores White was commissioned by the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra to write Celebration, Salute to the Arts for the centennial celebration of the Chicago World’s Fair, and the resulting work was premiered by CWO that year at the Cleveland Museum of Art. It is fitting, then, that the Orchestra’s program on Sunday, April 30 featured that work, both as tribute to the longtime Cleveland-based composer — who died on March 23 — and as a wider celebration of the arts and women’s contribution to it. The concert at Severance Music Center also featured Dane Johansen in a silky performance of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, and the King Christian II Suite of Jean Sibelius.

Conductor Jungho Kim (pictured) began by describing the orchestra’s commission of Celebration, and his meeting with the composer not long before her passing to discuss the upcoming concert. At age 90, White was so occupied by performances and personal appearances that she only had a few minutes to meet with Kim outside her apartment. Unconcerned by passing cars and street noise, as the conductor recalled, White intently pointed out important passages in the score. Kim was moved by her unflagging energy and attention.

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The Jerusalem Quartet: another Chamber Music Society gem (May 2)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

A great string quartet, it is said, plays as one: four players and sixteen strings channeled as a single instrument, even as each player worth his or her own salt retains something distinctive. Time and rehearsals, with luck and hard work, will result in a convincingly melded whole.

The Jerusalem Quartet plays with a remarkably blended, superbly unified voice. On Tuesday evening, May 2 at Disciples Christian Church, unity was in evidence in a splendid program of Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Bartók — another gem in the Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s series.

Before composing his Second String Quartet in F major in 1941, Prokofiev felt some pressure by local arts officials to incorporate folk melodies — not his usual practice — drawn from the northern Caucasus region, a remote corner to which the composer had recently been relocated. Whether Prokofiev was being subversive or sincere, there is power in his unvarnished, almost raw representation. On Tuesday night the Jerusalem leaned into the rawness.

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Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: David Russell (Apr. 22)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

For the grand finale to this season’s International Series, the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society welcomed David Russell in a much-anticipated appearance at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. With easygoing charm and astonishing skill, Russell delighted and flabbergasted the capacity crowd on Saturday night, April 22 in a program of familiar and unfamiliar works.

In his opening remarks, Guitar Society executive director Erik Mann announced that this would be the last CCGS concert to take place at Plymouth Church, with the series moving to the Maltz Performing Arts Center next season. The intimacy of Plymouth will be missed, but the recently refurbished Maltz will give the series an upgrade in prestige.

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Akron Symphony shines in Mahler 3 (Apr. 15)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Thinking small was not Mahler’s usual symphonic strategy. “A symphony must be like the world,” he famously asserted to Sibelius in 1907. “It must contain everything.”

But the whole world? Yes — and heaven, too.

The Third Symphony, written between 1895 and 1897, is Mahler’s longest and grandest. Many orchestras pass on it, due to the swollen forces required (lots of winds, brass, and percussion) and the huge lift asked of every section. The Akron Symphony, led by music director Christopher Wilkins, lifted it all very high on Saturday, April 15, sagging only rarely.
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Cleveland Cello Society: music & art with Santiago Cañón-Valencia (Apr. 14)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

On Friday, April 14, a packed LatinUs Theater audience in Cleveland’s Clark-Fulton neighborhood enthusiastically greeted Columbian cellist Santiago Cañón-Valencia. They in turn were treated to an unforgettable evening of music and art in a compelling black box venue.

The concert, titled “Ascenso,” is also the name of Cañón-Valencia’s latest recording — copies of which the cellist graciously signed in the lobby after the performance.

The experience of each of the five musical works was enhanced and enlarged by the projection of paintings onto a wall at the back of the stage. Each picture, rendered by the cellist himself, served as a kind of commentary on, or in some cases, visual representation of the music, done in the performer’s own abstract, mostly black and white style (“I’m not really a painter,” he declared, modestly). Musicians who paint may not be an unheard-of concept — composers Arnold Schoenberg and George Gershwin and cellist Aldo Parisot all painted, as does pianist Stephen Hough — but seeing the artwork on display while the music that inspired it is being performed makes for a special occasion indeed.

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David Russell returns to the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society

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by Kevin McLaughlin

David Russell may be one of the most respected and distinguished guitarists alive. But despite his Olympian artistic achievements — a Grammy, honorary membership in the Spanish Amigos de la Guitarra, and a place in the Hall of Fame of the Guitar Foundation of America — talking to him is like meeting an old friend over a pint at the pub.

On Saturday, April 22 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church, in a program presented by the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, Russell will play works by de la Maza, Marcello, Asencio, Lackenbacher, Susani, and Tolsa, as well as Celtic Folk music. I spoke to the guitarist via Zoom while he was in Chicago and began by asking him about his program.

DR: The first is Campanas del alba by Eduardo Sainz de la Maza. It translates as “Bells at Dawn,” and it’s a tremolo study with a lovely low melody. It’s sort of to introduce myself to the audience.

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Canton Symphony pays tribute to Wm. Blair III (Apr. 2)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

In a moving tribute to the recently deceased Canton Symphony board member and Northeast Ohio arts advocate William Blair III, Gerhardt Zimmermann and the Canton Symphony offered a varied program on Sunday, April 2, an evening full of musical depths and satisfying performances. Organist Heather Cooper, the Orchestra’s near constant companion onstage, sparkled as soloist.

The presence of organ at this concert was in honor of Blair, an organist himself, but it also brought a wonderful expansion to the orchestral palette. Cooper was featured, whether as soloist or as added texture, in nearly every piece. Her playing was consistently first rate. The only downside may have been a decreasing sense of the instrument’s specialness as the concert progressed. [Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Brasil Guitar Duo (Mar. 11)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

On Saturday evening, March 11 at Plymouth Church, the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society welcomed João Luiz and Douglas Lora, the Brasil Guitar Duo, after a four-year absence from the series.

As is customary for CCGS concerts, the evening began with a student performer. Daziel Pérez Pagán, 17, performed two short pieces. The first, written by Pagán himself when he was sixteen, was a lovely reflection called Rewoken. The second, River Flows in You, a work originally for piano by the Korean composer Yiruma and transcribed by Pagán, was beautifully played.

The Brasil Guitar Duo opened their recital with Piazzolla’s lively and sweet tango, Zita, named for the wife of Aníbal Troilo, the composer’s mentor and friend. Immediately the guitarists demonstrated warmth and technical control, qualities that remained throughout the evening.

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Apollo’s Fire: Music of the Jewish & African Diasporas (Mar. 8)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Who doesn’t love an Apollo’s Fire concert? Jeannette Sorrell and troupe always seem to offer a festival for the eye and ear — thoughtful thematic programs, all-out committed musicianship, and infectious exuberance. Wednesday’s program at Bath Church UCC was all this and more.

The third in a triptych of Jewish-themed programs titled “Exile and Resilience,” this one — thoughtfully conceived and researched program by Sorrell — offered seven perspectives on Jewish and African exile.

[Read more…]

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