by Kevin McLaughlin
The theme of the June 21 ChamberFest concert may have been “Paradise Lost,” but the performances and repertoire were of such high caliber, there was nowhere you would rather have found yourself.
A joyful noise opened the concert. J.S. Bach’s Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen featured soprano Sarah Shafer and trumpeter Brandon Ridenour in a sparkling account of the cantata Bach liked so much that he designated it as suitable for performance “in ogni tempo” — at any time.
by Kevin McLaughlin
On June 20, the day when the two warm seasons join, ChamberFest Cleveland put on a program that was more about springtime than summer.
Titled “Rite of Spring” — for Stravinsky’s ballet and the stem-winder of an arrangement for two pianists and two percussionists that ended the concert — tonight’s program was distinctly light in mood, including silly songs by Bernstein and P.D.Q. Bach, a couple of tearjerkers by Dvořák and Kurt Weill, and dance music by HK Gruber and Martinů.
by Kevin McLaughlin
Bridget Kibbey did on Saturday what harpists rarely get to do: she stole the show. No mean feat when sharing the stage with the other bright and esteemed performers who regularly appear as part of ChamberFest Cleveland — particularly during “Fantastic Tales,” the third concert of this year’s season, which took place on June 15 at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall.
Kibbey was also lively with the microphone, giving an engaging introduction to André Caplet’s 1924 Conte Fantastique (Fantastic Tale). After the performance, she mingled among the crowd — not so much a star gesture as a genuine one that made her performance even more memorable.
Given that André Caplet orchestrated and conducted some of Debussy’s works, many associate the two composers. To say Caplet’s musical language is impressionist-adjacent is partly true but hardly encapsulates his unique, ahead-of-his-time voice.
Kibbey made the most of Caplet’s action-packed work — part harp concerto and part tone poem, based on Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Masque of the Red Death.
by Kevin McLaughlin
Jason Vieaux, a guitarist with an uncommonly clean technique and broad palette, made a fine opening act for the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall on Thursday, June 6. He was joined in the second half by violinist Mari Sato, an ideal chamber music partner. Vieaux’s ability to bestow tonal and dynamic nuance gave refreshing variety to every piece, and his cleanly articulated rhythms added panache and polish.
The concert opened with Mexican composer Manuel Ponce’s Sonatina Meridional (“Southern Sonatina”), written to sound Spanish at the behest of Andrés Segovia. Vieaux brought out the linear elegance of the first movement, called “Campo” by Segovia, and the right amount of Iberian swing. So convincing was his ability to change color, you might have thought he had changed instruments if you weren’t looking — the low-register “pizzicato” passages, for example, sounded like an electric bass. The following two movements, “Copla” and “Fiesta,” were artfully done, too, with Segovia-like virtues: a multitude of colors, subtle dynamics, and long arcs of phrasing. [Read more…]
by Kevin McLaughlin
You might have gone to the Sunday, June 2 She Scores concert to hear exemplary works by female and nonbinary composers, or simply to enjoy some fresh new sounds. But once there, you would have stayed for the dazzling expertise on display, from both composers and performers alike.
Credit the Local 4 Music Fund and executive director Amber Rogers for organizing the fourth annual iteration of this splendid concert series, which ran from May 30-June 2 in CIM’s lovely Mixon Hall. Genre or gender aside, this was an afternoon of superb music.
Margi Griebling-Haigh’s Triskaidekaphilia (“love of the number thirteen”) for three violins made for an arresting and mathematical start. Violinists Ken Johnston, Leah Goor-Burtnett, and Emily Cornelius drew out the composer’s introspective and playful sides in this well-crafted three-movement work. [Read more…]
by Kevin McLaughlin
In what has become a welcome springtime tradition at Severance Music Center, Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra devoted their season finale to opera. Mozart’s The Magic Flute contained many delights — a beautiful score, superb singing, imaginative staging by Nikolaus Habjan, spare but thought-provoking sets — in such quality as to perhaps win over even the most opera-resistant. And maybe to prompt the timeless question: doesn’t Cleveland deserve a full-time, professional opera company? I attended opening night on May 16.
A centerpiece of the second Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival, Magic Flute shares the festival’s theme of “power.” The characters of Tamino, Papageno, and Pamina eventually vanquish an angry queen, though the allegorical plot is more a parable of growing up and learning to love and trust. There are also initiation rites, a rescue, and a conversion to the high ideals of another powerful figure, Sarastro. [Read more…]
by Kevin McLaughlin
Unfinished works seem to be held in higher esteem for their being incomplete — the remaining music feeling more precious, conscious as we are of what else might have been lost. How to explain then, the impact of Mozart’s Mass in c, K. 427, lacking an Agnus Dei and missing half of its Credo, and yet seeming gloriously whole in its current state?
On Saturday, May 11 at EJ Thomas Hall, the Akron Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Christopher Wilkins ended its 2023-24 season at an apex with Mozart’s “Great” Mass and works by French composers Lili Boulanger and Maurice Ravel.
by Kevin McLaughlin
What is a little chamber music among friends? Pure enjoyment, that’s what. On Monday, May 6 at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, you got the feeling that the pleasure had by this group — clarinetist Afendi Yusuf, violist Wesley Collins, and pianist Dawoon Chung — might have occurred with or without the rapt Rocky River Chamber Music Society audience in attendance.
But, lucky for us, we were. The program — clarinet trios by Mozart, Bruch, and Robert Schumann — brought together not only infrequently performed repertoire, but an obviously friendly group of collaborators.
By Kevin McLaughlin | Cleveland Classical
This article was originally published on Cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Conductor David Afkham made everything look easy in his Severance Music Center debut with The Cleveland Orchestra on Friday evening, April 26. He committed to lead works by Unsuk Chin, Rachmaninoff, and Bartók in March when Lahav Shani asked to be away for the birth of his first child.
That program would be a heavy lift for any conductor, but the Orchestra responded to Afkham’s remarkable assurance and clarity and delivered some of the most exhilarating performances of the season to date.
by Kevin McLaughlin
It is one of Cleveland’s persistently good things that outlets for fresh new music — played by some of the area’s best musicians — continue to thrive. On Sunday, April 28, we were reminded of this again at Cleveland Chamber Collective’s presentation of Ty Alan Emerson’s Oath Breaker, a Requiem for chamber ensemble and digital playback at the Pivot Center.
Emerson conducted a distinguished ensemble comprising Linda White, flute, Emily Cornelius, violin, Brian Slawta, viola, Trevor Kazarian, cello, Eric Charnofsky, piano, and Dylan Moffitt, percussion.
Oath Breaker takes the audience on a 60-minute journey of anger, grief, and hope, as a kind of collective PTSD therapy session about the events of January 6 and its subsequent aftermath. The mixture of recorded electronics, live performances, and poetic and prosaic texts helped to conjure in real time the horror of that day.