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Cleveland Pops Orchestra: Season 28 begins with Broadway’s Best

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by Mike Telin

What do you do when you’re programming a concert and you’re curious to know what your audience wants to hear? “We sent a survey to our subscribers asking them to tell us their favorite Broadway show and favorite song,” Carl Topilow said during a telephone conversation. “People were interested in participating. We had a nice return and came up with a lot of great possibilities.”

On Friday, October 25 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, the Cleveland Pops Orchestra will launch its 28th season when Topilow leads “Broadway’s Best.” The evening will feature music from hit musicals including Hello Dolly, Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, Hamilton, and Les Misérables. Tickets are available online.

Topilow said that he looks forward to having three wonderful guest vocalists join him and the orchestra onstage. [Read more…]

Tuesday Musical launches season with “Because of You,” a tribute to Tony Bennett

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by Mike Telin

For more than three decades, pianist/singer/arranger/educator and historian Michael Feinstein has dedicated himself to bringing the music of the Great American songbook to the world. And of the many interpreters of that musical genre, the name Tony Bennett stands above most others.

On Tuesday, October 22 at 7:30 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron, Tuesday Musical will launch their new season with Michael Feinstein’s “Because of You,” a tribute to the iconic singer featuring the Carnegie Hall Big Band. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with Feinstein by phone.

[Read more…]

Les Délices to unveil “Arcadian Dreams”

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by Mike Telin

For their latest performance and recording project, Les Délices has turned to the bucolic paradise of Arcadia — a place of pastoral perfection where nature and humanity are in perfect balance  — for inspiration.

“Arcadian Dreams” features works for soprano and chamber ensemble by Jean-Philippe Rameau and a young Georg Frederic Handel, rarely-performed pieces by Louis Lefebvre and Thomas Louis Bourgeois, and music by Arcangelo Corelli and Domenico Scarlatti.

The premiere performances are on Saturday, October 19 at 2:00 pm at the Hudson Library & Historical Society — click here for a seating reservation — and Sunday, October 20 at 7:30 pm at Harkness Chapel. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with Les Délices oboist and artistic director Debra Nagy and soprano Hannah De Priest by Zoom. I began by asking them how the project came about.

[Read more…]

No Exit begins year sixteen with New Season, New Sounds

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by Mike Telin

After celebrating its sixteenth season with a deep dive into the world of Surreality, No Exit begins their 16th concert season on Thursday, October 17 at 7:00 pm at Cleveland State University’s Drinko Recital Hall with  “New Season, New Sounds.”

The evening will feature works by No Exit’s percussionist/composer Katy La Favre as well as Josef Marek, Hannah Kendall, Arthur Hernandez, James Praznik, and Timothy Beyer. The program will be repeated at 7:00 pm on Friday at Waterloo Arts, and Saturday at SPACES Gallery. All performances are free.

“After last season’s Surreality programs, we were so energized because the reception was so great. We want to continue to entertain, maybe enlighten, and even make some people angry,” the group’s artistic director Timothy Beyer said during a recent telephone conversation. He added that this program, which includes three world premieres, is anything but boring.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Music Society continues its 75th anniversary season with Imani Winds and pianist Michelle Cann

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by Mike Telin

For pianist Michelle Cann, returning to Cleveland always feels like coming home. “It was such a significant part of my life, having done my bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Cleveland Institute of Music,” she said. “I just love the city and I have so many memories, both musically and personally, that it always feels so great to be back.”

On Tuesday, October 15 at 7:30 pm at The Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church, Cann will join the Imani Winds for a Cleveland Chamber Music Society concert that will include works by Paquito D’Rivera, Lalo Schifrin, Valerie Coleman, and Francis Poulenc. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

Salonen to conduct his Cello Concerto with Senja Rummukainen at Severance

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by Mike Telin

“I’m looking forward to coming to the Severance Hall, and working with Esa-Pekka — who is a wonderful musician, conductor, and composer — is going to be an amazing experience for sure,” Finnish cellist Senja Rummukainen said during a recent interview. “But getting to play with The Cleveland Orchestra is the greatest thing that’s happened to me —  it’s still a bit unreal.”

On Thursday, October 10 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, Rummukainen will make her Cleveland Orchestra debut with Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Cello Concerto. Under the direction of the composer, the concert will also include Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin and Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5. The program will be repeated on Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sunday at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

Salar Nader and Homayoun Sakhi bring Afghan music to Oberlin

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by Mike Telin

“I can’t wait to be back — Cleveland is like a second home,” tabla virtuoso Salar Nader said during a telephone conversation. “I have so many fond memories of performing at the Cleveland Museum of Art and in The Kite Runner at Cleveland Playhouse back in 2010. And of course working so many times with Jamey Haddad at the Bop Stop, Nighttown, and Tri-C JazzFest. And I love Oberlin — to be there with Homayoun and working with the students is going to be a beautiful thing.”

On Sunday, October 6 at 7:30 pm in Finney Chapel, Salar Nader and rubâb player Homayoun Sakhi will present a program featuring music of their Afghan homeland, pushing artistic boundaries that reflect their country’s position at the confluence of Persian, Central Asian, and Indian cultures. The program also includes Oberlin Conservatory’s Performance and Improvisation (PI) Ensemble, directed by Jamey Haddad.

On Saturday, October 5 at 1:00 pm, Nader and Sakhi will present a public master class in Stull Recital Hall. Click here for more information. Both events are free.

Nader said that Haddad has been a longtime friend and mentor since meeting in the Pyrenees Mountains of Spain in 2007. “DJ Cheb i Sabbah brought us together, and it was like we were long-lost brothers by the time we played the show. Ever since then he has always been so welcoming. The thing that I learned from him and people like Stanley Clark, is that they all have a similar attitude when it comes to welcoming the different musics of the world.”

[Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra begins its 15th season: a conversation with Neil Mueller

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by Mike Telin

When Carlton Woods was set to retire from his post at Michigan’s Midland Symphony Orchestra in 2007, the longtime music educator and conductor, along with his wife Ladonna, set his sights on Cleveland.

Why Cleveland? “I wanted to come where I could hear the best orchestra in the country and one of the greatest in the world every week,” Woods told The Plain Dealer in a 2015 interview. Once here, Woods quickly recognized the wealth of professional musicians living in the area who were looking for more opportunities to perform. In a sense, Woods seized the moment, and in 2010 with the tagline “From Cleveland for Cleveland,” the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra was born.

On Saturday, October 4 at 7:30 pm at the Church of the Covenant, the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra will kick off its fifteenth anniversary with “Threads of Time, Struggle, and Hope.” [Read more…]

Les Délices opens its season with “Moonlit Mozart” Serenades

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by Mike Telin

It’s delightful to read that Wolfgang Amadè Mozart, whose music has charmed so many ears, could surprise and charm himself. He wrote in a letter to his father from Vienna on his name-day, November 3, 1781:

“At eleven o’clock at night I was treated to a serenade performed by two clarinets, two horns and two bassoons — and that of my own composition. These musicians asked that the street door might be opened and, placing themselves in the center of the courtyard, surprised me, just as I was about to undress, in the most pleasant fashion imaginable with the first chord in E-flat.”

This week, Les Délices will open their season with “Moonlit Mozart.” Oboists Debra Nagy and Kathryn Montoya, clarinetists Eric Hoeprich and Madison Vienna, bassoonists Stephanie Corwin and Clay Zeller-Townson, hornists Nathanael Udell and Sadie Glass, and double bassist Sue Yelanjian will perform selections from The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni, the Adagio from the Serenade in E-flat, K. 375, and the Serenade in C minor, K 388.

[Read more…]

Severance in Recital: Pavel Kolesnikov Plays J.S. Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations

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by Mike Telin

“I think the Goldberg Variations are one of the greatest achievements of the human mind and human soul of all times. And it is one of the most astonishing architectural creations in music — it’s like a wonder of the world,” pianist Pavel Kolesnikov said during a recent telephone conversation. “And hearing it live is just a tremendous experience that you cannot explain in words.”

On Tuesday, September 24 at 7:30 pm in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance Music Center, the Siberian-born, London-based pianist will perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s Aria and Thirty Variations, aka “The Goldberg Variations,” in a recital sponsored by The Cleveland Orchestra. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with the pianist in England where he was serving on the jury of the Leeds International Piano Competition. I began our conversation by asking him what it was like to move from being a competitor to a juror.

[Read more…]

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