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Cleveland Chamber Music Society: Imani Winds go all out with Michelle Cann (Oct. 15)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Imani Winds has mastered the art of extemporized risk-taking. If most of the notes on Tuesday, October 15, were predetermined, the specialness was in what was not on the page. It’s what one aspires to hear from the best chamber music performances and in jazz: aligned individual and group invention, conversational interplay, courage of dynamics, tempos, and timbres edging on extremes — music-making never again to be heard in exactly the same way.

Flutist Brandon Patrick George, oboist Toyin Spellman-Diaz, clarinetist Mark Dover, horn player Kevin Newton, and bassoonist Monica Ellis were joined by pianist Michelle Cann — a potent spark of invention in her own right — in a program of varied, but logically grouped works by Paquito D’Rivera, Lalo Shifrin, Francis Poulenc, and Valerie Coleman. Ellis described the evening’s sequence as “concentric circles” coinciding in Paris, or at least in a French aesthetic.

[Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra meditates on the passage of time (Oct. 5)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

On October 5 at the Church of the Covenant, artistic director Daniel Meyer led the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra in an engaging program of new and familiar works, including David Biedenbender’s River of Time, with former BlueWater principal trumpet and co-artistic director Neil Mueller as soloist.

As a glorious opener, the Cleveland School of the Arts R. Nathaniel Dett Concert Choir (Robert McCorvey, director) and the BlueWater Orchestra combined forces during four spiritual and gospel arrangements. CSA also supplied select string players from the school to sit alongside the professionals, adding tonal depth and youthful energy. [Read more…]

Chanticleer opens CCMS season with an ode to nature (Sept. 24)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Chanticleer’s widely-varied program “Music of a Silent World” opened the Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s 75th season on Tuesday, September 24 at The Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church in Cleveland Heights.

Throughout the two-hour performance, Chanticleer brought a lovely and well-blended group sound, faultless intonation, and an extraordinary stylistic range — from German romantic to Sondheim. Tim Keeler is the group’s Music Director, and Chanticleer performs without a conductor. Their remarkable group sound is a tribute to the lovely mixture of predominantly lighter male voices — six countertenors, three tenors, and three baritones/basses.

This program centered around selections from Majel Connery’s song cycle The Rivers Are Our Brothers, whose declamatory lyrics readily identified the messengers (“I am the air,” “I am a cloud,” “I am a river”). [Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Showcase Concert (Sept. 14)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The Cleveland Classical Guitar Society kicked off its new season at the Maltz Performing Arts Center on Saturday, September 14 with its “2024 Showcase,” highlighting outstanding Cleveland talent and a rising star.

As is customary, an alumnus of CCGS’ Citizens Leadership Academy began the evening. Damien Goggans gave a superb and poised performance, evidence of his own talent and bestowing reflected glory on the educational arm of CCGS.

Goggans, who is a classical guitar performance major at Oberlin Conservatory, has already enjoyed triumphs at Severance Music Center and on national television and radio. Selecting three of Thomas Flippin’s 14 Études on the Music of Black Americans to play (III. “Don’t Let Nobody Turn You ’Round,” XIII. “Wake Up, Jacob,” and XII. “Don’t Be Weary, Traveler”), he sang the three spiritual melodies with an easy and clear voice before playing the etudes on guitar alone. Goggans’ guitar playing was an extension of his singing voice: sensitive, technically secure, and dignified. [Read more…]

Isabelle and Raphaël Olivier evoke French sensibility at Reithoffer’s (Aug. 23)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Harpist Isabelle Olivier and her son, guitarist Raphaël Olivier, combined for an eclectic program of smart, original compositions and unexpected covers on Friday evening, August 23. The charming nightclub setting of Reithoffer’s (called Hoff’s by regulars), 10 miles east of Chagrin Falls, is an especially agreeable place to hear music.

Raphaël, age 27, who did most of the talking, charmed us right off with the duo’s origin story: “We’re from a small town outside Paris, but have now lived in Chicago twelve years. I’ve been a US citizen for a month and have less of a French accent, but Isabelle has more.”

This also applied to their musical accents. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra, Kent Blossom Chamber Orchestra delight in Blossom performance (July 27)

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This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

by Kevin McLaughlin | ClevelandClassical.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — Finnish guest conductor Hannu Lintu strode onstage at the Blossom Music Center on July 27, all six-feet-plus of him, as purposefully as the hero in Lemminkäinen’s Return. The opening work on The Cleveland Orchestra’s program on Saturday is the fourth tone poem in Jan Sibelius’s “Lemminkäinen Suite,” based on Finland’s national epic, the “Kalevala.”

All he needed was a horse. But then, with a turn toward the orchestra and a mighty downbeat, he unleashed equestrian fury from strings and woodwinds, allowing some brass aggression here and there. With loose-limbed, ropey arms and an occasional leg-lift, Lintu projected the relaxed potency of a warrior leading his team to victory. 

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Cleveland Orchestra delights with Mendelssohn, Berlioz and Beethoven at Blossom Music Center (July 20)

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This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

by Kevin McLaughlin | ClevelandClassical.com

CUYAHOGA  FALLS, Ohio — There were plenty of midsummer smiles at The Cleveland Orchestra’s Blossom Music Center concert on Saturday July 20, as Mendelssohn’s fairies cavorted, Veronique Gens’s lovely voice wafted forth, and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony danced everyone to their feet.

To begin, guest conductor Antonello Manacorda led a glittering performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream — so vivid and atmospheric you could swear that you spotted elves prancing on the lawn.

The opening woodwind chords that ushered us into Shakespeare’s magical world were well balanced and pure, largely thanks to the flute and clarinet playing of Jessica Sindell and Daniel McKelway. Violins scurrying at a fast but prudent tempo — and an impossibly soft but effective dynamic — summoned the fairies. Throughout, Manacorda’s gestures were expressive and economical.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra provides fireworks of the non-pyrotechnic kind (July 13)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — It was a night of fireworks at The Cleveland Orchestra’s Blossom Music Center concert on Saturday, July 13, even if there were no after-concert skyrockets. The Orchestra’s principal trumpet Michael Sachs deserves primary credit, supplying as he did a whole summer’s worth of pyrotechnics in a single trumpet concerto.

Also impressive was the young Venezuelan conductor Domingo Hindoyan, who in his Cleveland Orchestra debut, showed both flair and craft.

In Alexander Borodin’s exotic Polovtsian Dances, extracted from his opera Prince Igor (1887), Hindoyan also displayed a mastery of combining orchestral and choral forces. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera enchants with The Count of Luxembourg (July 11)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Operetta distinguishes itself when it is served by great voices and a captivating score. The stories and situations, which can be light and a little silly, pretty much stay in the sunshine. Franz Lehár’s The Count of Luxembourg, which opened in Ohio Light Opera’s production on Thursday, July 11, benefitted from uniformly excellent singing, comedic acting, and a perfectly winsome score — full of catchy waltzes and polkas with lush arias sprinkled in — that had you smiling and whistling like it was 1909. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Night Moves” at Disciples Church (June 28)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

It was nice to finally hear one of ChamberFest Cleveland’s “Sacred and Profane” concerts (“Night Moves” on June 28) in a religious setting — Disciples Church in Cleveland Heights — since it helped the “sacred” music resonate (in more ways than one). As the home of the Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s concerts, it’s a well-loved space to experience chamber music.

It turns out, though, you don’t necessarily need a church — or even voices — to convey the spirituality of the opener, Palestrina’s 1572 motet, Dominus Jesus in qua nocte.

[Read more…]

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