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ChamberFest 2023:
Lightness of Being

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by Mike Telin

From the beginning, ChamberFest Cleveland’s programming has centered around creative themes such as The Big Bang (2012), Crossing Borders (2015), and most recently X (2022). For season eleven, which runs from June 14 through July 1, the Festival takes on a literary slant with Lightness of Being.

During a Zoom conversation with Roman Rabinovich and Diana Cohen — two of the Festival’s three artistic directors — Rabinovich said that he has been a fan of Milan Kundera’s 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being for many years. “Last summer I reread it, I think for the third time, and it really pulled me in. It’s rich in ideas that are very deep but also entertaining and timeless. And Kundera is also an amazing writer about music — you can tell he has a deep knowledge of classical music.”

Cohen added that like music, that novel explores every aspect of the human condition with its archetypes of personalities, relationships, politics, war, and culture. “It explores so many different multitudes that we decided to see what we could do with it.”

[Read more…]

Local 4 Music Fund’s She Scores: Round Three

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by Mike Telin

When the Institute for Composer Diversity analyzed the 2019-20 seasons of 120 American orchestras, it found that just eight percent of all pieces performed were composed by women. For Amber Rogers, artistic director of the Local 4 Music Fund, that statistic was a call for action. “The idea of concerts featuring female composers isn’t new, but I didn’t see anything quite like this in Cleveland,” Rogers told ClevelandClassical.com’s Stephanie Manning in June of 2021.

On June 2 and 3 at 7:00 pm and June 4 at 4:00 pm at Cleveland State University’s Drinko Hall, She Scores 2023 will feature nineteen compositions by fourteen composers. Emily Laurance will present a pre-concert lecture 45 minutes prior to each free performance. Visit our Concert Listings page for composer names, composition titles, and performers.

“We are adding one piece to the June 3rd concert to honor the late composer Dolores White,” Rogers said during a recent telephone conversation. “Eric Charnofsky met with Dolores’s daughter Dianna and she gave him a couple of scores to pick from. We talked about them and looked at our instrumentation, and Eric and Drew Hosler are doing a piece for saxophone and piano.”

[Read more…]

Orlando Watson to host United in Song at Severance

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by Mike Telin

“I’m working in Pittsburgh now, but I will forever be a Clevelander,” spoken word poet Orlando Watson said in a telephone conversation. “And coming home to partner with The Cleveland Orchestra and to be able to create in that glorious hall that has been around since 1931, is quite an honor.”

On Saturday, May 13 at 2:00 pm at Severance Music Center, Watson will host United In Song. The afternoon of vocal performances celebrates the rich diversity of the Greater Cleveland community. Performing ensembles include the  Humbly Submitted Gospel Chorus, Andy Andino and Voces Hispanas, Tri-C Vocal Arts Academy, The Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Chorus, and ensembles from Cleveland’s immigrant community. The event is free.

[Read more…]

The Girl of the Golden West: A conversation with tenor Limmie Pulliam

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by Mike Telin

Perhaps no seven-year period in history epitomizes the American dream more than that of the California Gold Rush. Between 1848 and 1855 approximately 300,000 people made their way west in search of the fortunes that were there for the taking in the California goldfields.

Giacomo Puccini immortalized that period of U.S. history in his three-act opera, La Fanciulla del West. Based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco, the opera centers around Minnie, the owner of the Polka saloon, her love interest, the bandit Dick Johnson, and the jealous suitor, sheriff Jack Rance.

On Sunday, May 14 at 3:00 pm at Severance Music Center, Franz Welser-Möst will lead the first of three performances of Puccini’s Girl of the Golden West. Sung in Italian with English subtitles, the cast features soprano Emily Magee as Minnie, bass Roman Burdenko as Jack, and tenor Limmie Pulliam as Dick, along with a horde of gold miners. Performances continue at 7:30 pm on Wednesday May 17 and Saturday May 20. Tickets are available online. The opera is presented as part of The Orchestra’s American Dream Festival.

[Read more…]

Alisa Weilerstein talks about FRAGMENTS

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by Mike Telin

When faced with the realities of the pandemic, like many cellists, Alisa Weilerstein found refuge on social media, streaming movements of Bach’s cello suites. “I just want to have a kind of outpouring of music, of thoughts, and everything else,” she told The New York Times in 2020. “Right now all I really want to do is give.”

Little did she know that spending time with her thoughts would eventually lead to the creation of FRAGMENTS. The multi-year project weaves together movements of Bach’s six solo cello suites with 27 newly commissioned works.

On Thursday, May 11 at Severance Music Center Weilerstein will present FRAGMENTS 1, in which Bach’s first cello suite will be combined with selections from the commissioned pieces. The hour-long program is enhanced by theatrical elements including responsive lighting and set designs.

The music will be performed without pause and without printed programs. Following the performance, audiences can attend a post-concert discussion with Weilerstein and the FRAGMENTS creative team. Tickets are available online. The evening is presented as part of The Cleveland Orchestra’s American Dream Festival.

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Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra: Violinist Marina Ziegler plays Sibelius

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by Mike Telin

Performing a concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra is an honor and a moment to cherish. “I have fun playing Sibelius,” violinist Marina Ziegler said, “I’m just happy to play it with COYO because I get to do it with all of my friends. And it will be a nice way to end the year. My first piece with COYO was the Sibelius Second Symphony, so I feel like I’ve come full circle.”

On May 5 at 8:00 pm at Severance Music Center, the Copley High School senior will play the Sibelius concerto with COYO under the direction of Daniel Reith. The program also includes Schwerrtsik’s Herr K. entdeckt Amerika and Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3. Tickets are available online.

Ziegler began her violin studies at the age of five at the Sato Center for Suzuki Studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Her teachers have included Stephen Sims, Isabel Trautwein, and Eugenia Poustyreva. She currently studies violin with David Bowlin at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. [Read more…]

Allison Loggins-Hull is named next Cleveland Orchestra Composer Fellow

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by Mike Telin

When Allison Loggins-Hull’s manager reached out to say that The Cleveland Orchestra was curious to see some of her scores, the composer/flutist thought they might be interested in programming some of her music  in the future. Then, several weeks later, when he called back and asked Loggins-Hull if she was interested in being the Orchestra’s Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow, at first she didn’t take him seriously.

“I thought ‘Okay, Greg, what do you really want?’ But when he said no, this is real,  I was like wow, because this was not something that I saw coming.”

On Thursday, May 4 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in the world premiere of Loggins-Hull’s Can You See? The concert will also include Barber’s Cello Concerto with Alisa Weilerstein as soloist and the revised 1947 version of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4. The program will be repeated on Saturday at 8 pm. Tickets are available online.

One hour before each performance, a Prelude program in Reinberger Chamber Hall curated by Loggins-Hull will feature excerpts from her full-length program Honoring Black Composers, which will be presented at Karamu House on May 21.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Ballet: an evening of firsts

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by Mike Telin

Many exciting things are happening for the Cleveland Ballet. On Friday, April 21 and on Saturday April 22 at 7:00 pm at Connor Palace Theatre at Playhouse Square, the company will for the first time present George Balanchine’s Serenade.

The program also includes the Company’s first commissioned musical score, Symphony of Life by ​Israeli composer Anna Segal. And both works will be performed with the newly formed Cleveland Ballet Orchestra under the direction of Caleb Young. Tickets are available online.

Segal’s works are regularly performed by many orchestras and ensembles including the Berliner Symphoniker, London Mozart Players Orchestra, Ukraine National Philharmonic Orchestra, and The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra presents Ellis Island: The Dream of America

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by Mike Telin

When writing a new orchestral work, the composer hopes that the piece will have a life after the initial premiere performances. Then you have Peter Boyer’s Ellis Island: The Dream of America. Since its premiere in 2002, the work has been performed 216 times by 114 orchestras.

On Tuesday, April 18 at 7:30 pm, Daniel Reith will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Boyer’s multimedia work that honors the immigrant experience by combining music, narration, and historic images. Directed by Donald Carrier, Ellis Island: The Dream of America features seven actors who portray the journeys of immigrants from seven countries on their way to America, beginning in the early parts of the past century. The concert is a prelude to the inaugural Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival: The American Dream. Click here for free tickets (required). Following Tuesday’s performance, the work will be performed on the Orchestra’s educational concerts.

[Read more…]

Click, Click, Click: ChamberFest Cleveland

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by Mike Telin

There are a few works in the classical repertoire that leave you wondering what is going on. One example that comes to mind is John Cage’s 4’33” where the performers are instructed not to play for the duration of the work’s three movements.

Another is György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique for 100 mechanical metronomes. Written in 1962, during the composer’s brief association with the Fluxus movement, the piece calls for ten performers, each responsible for ten metronomes all of which are wound to their fullest extent and set to different speeds. Then, at the discretion of the conductor, the metronomes are set into action and the performers leave the stage and wait until the last metronome goes silent.

This summer ChamberFest Cleveland, which runs from June 14 through July 1, will present Ligeti’s quirky piece — which begs the question: how does one beg, borrow, or steal 100 windup metronomes?

[Read more…]

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