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CIM Opera Theater: JJ Hudson directs Dialogues of the Carmelites

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by Mike Telin

Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites recounts a fictionalized version of the real-life story of the Martyrs of Compiègne, a group of Carmelite nuns who, during the closing days of the Reign of Terror, were guillotined in Paris for refusing to renounce their vocation.

On Friday, March 3 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, March 5 at 3:00 pm, CIM Opera Theater will present Poulenc’s haunting opera directed by JJ Hudson. Harry Davidson conducts the CIM Orchestra. Tickets are available online.

Since 2021, JJ Hudson has been Professor of Opera at Georgia State University and was recently appointed Artistic Director of the Harrower Summer Opera Workshop. His upcoming productions include A Little Night Music for Opera in the Ozarks, Ariadne auf Naxos for Lakes Area Music Festival, and La serva padrona, Dido and Aeneas, and Our Town​ for Georgia State University Opera Theater.

I caught up with the director by phone and began our conversation by asking him about his history with Poulenc’s opera. [Read more…]

Daniel Reith to lead the 
Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra 
and Youth Chorus on Friday

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by Mike Telin

What are the duties of an assistant conductor of a major orchestra? “Every day is an experience,” Daniel Reith said during a recent telephone conversation. Since assuming that position with The Cleveland Orchestra this season, Reith has had a lot on his plate. In addition to his involvement with numerous educational activities, he has led the Orchestra’s family concerts and the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Concert. Earlier this month he stepped in on very short notice for an ailing Klaus Mäkelä to lead three subscription concert performances.

“It’s a great pleasure to work with The Cleveland Orchestra,” the German-born conductor said. “During my first few weeks I would think about all the great conductors who had walked through these halls. I would just stare at the walls and ceiling in Mandel Hall imagining all the amazing musical interpretations those walls had heard over the years. It is one of the best halls in the world. After a tour, everybody is happy to come back to Severance — it’s great to have such a hall as your musical home.”

On Friday, February 24 at 8:00 pm at Severance Music Center, Reith will wear another hat when he leads the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and Youth Chorus in works by Wagner, Schubert, and Brahms. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

Dunphy & Goldfinger’s Alice Tierney makes its debut at Oberlin College

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by Mike Telin

The program synopsis of the new opera Alice Tierney — which received its world premiere performances on January 27 through 29 at Oberlin’s Finney Chapel (I attended on the 29th) — consists of one brief paragraph.

The scene takes place at an archaeological dig in Philadelphia. At this site in 1880, a woman named Alice Tierney was found dead, hanging from a fence by her petticoats.

While the mysterious death of the real-life Alice could have become fodder for a made-for-television cold case mystery where everything is neatly wrapped up in sixty minutes, composer Melissa Dunphy and librettist Jacqueline Goldfinger resisted that temptation. Instead, they chose to create a sixty-minute emotional roller coaster ride that follows four archeology graduate students as they attempt to discover the truth about Alice’s demise.

The opera was commissioned by Oberlin Conservatory’s Opera Commissioning Program and a 2020 Discovery Grant from OPERA America. [Read more…]

A Romantic German Valentine

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by Mike Telin

What is it about the central German city of Weimar that has inspired so many important artists, musicians, poets and philosophers?

In 2019 composer Margi Griebling-Haigh had the good fortune to visit the picturesque city twice — she too was inspired. “The apartment I was staying in was on the top floor of an old building on the Herderplatz. My window overlooked the bell tower of the church in which Bach wrote most of his organ concertos,” she recalled during a recent conversation. “It snowed most of the week I was there — it was beautiful. But looking out at the bell tower and hearing them ring, I realized that this is what Bach would have heard. I actually recorded them on my phone, and I knew that somehow I would use them in a piece.”

On Tuesday, February 14 at 7:30 pm at Fairmount Presbyterian Church Chapel, Griebling-Haigh’s Weimarer Winterszenen and Lufthaltenlieder will receive their world premieres during a program titled “A Romantic German Valentine.” The program will also include Schubert’s Auf dem Strom, Der Hirt auf dem Felsen and Schumann’s Drei Romanzen & Drei Fantasiestücke  performed by Gabrielle Haigh (soprano), Robert Woolfrey (clarinet), Jesse McCormick (horn), Margi Griebling-Haigh (English horn), and Randall Fusco (piano). Suggested freewill donation: $20 at the door. [Read more…]

Week 2: Klaus Mäkelä returns to The Cleveland Orchestra podium

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by Mike Telin

After an illness forced Klaus Mäkelä to withdraw from three of the four scheduled performances last week, the Finnish conductor will return to The Cleveland Orchestra podium on Thursday, February 9 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center.  The program will include Unsuk Chin’s SPIRA – Concerto for Orchestra and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, and it will be repeated on Saturday at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

Last week I caught up with the friendly conductor by phone for a brief chat while he was backstage at Severance.

Mike Telin: How did you come to pair the Unsuk Chin with the Mahler?

Klaus Mäkelä: The Mahler is a tough piece to program with because it is a bipolar symphony. It’s tragic and then dramatic and has some of the most beautiful music ever written. And it ends in contrapuntal joy. It’s a symphony where everybody has an opportunity to shine. And Unsuk Chin’s piece is a beautiful concerto for orchestra. She was a student of Ligeti, and she has an extremely detailed and careful way of writing for the orchestra. In a way she reminds me of Mahler in that she is precise down to the very last detail.

Of course the piece is a showcase for the orchestra but in a virtuosic way. The strings play fast and very high and the horn has a big solo. But everything blends together. It takes a group mentality to play, which is something about The Cleveland Orchestra that is very special for me. [Read more…]

“The joy of singing” with 
The Cleveland Consort of Voices

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by Mike Telin 

Forming a small vocal ensemble was something that Steven Plank had wanted to do for a long time. And when a surge in COVID cases forced him to reduce the number of singers in the choir at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the opportunity arose. “We began doing the liturgy with just eight singers,” Plank said during a telephone conversation. “We were having such a good time that one Thursday evening I asked if they would like to do some concerts. And they all said yes.”

On Sunday, February 12 at 4:00 pm at Church of the Saviour in Cleveland Heights,  Plank will lead The Cleveland Consort of Voices — Sandra Simon and Emily Stauch (sopranos), Elizabeth Frey and Madelyn Hasebein (altos), Brian Skoog and Joel Kincannon (tenors), and Luca Cantone and Brian Wacker (basses) — in a program that celebrates the joy of singing. The concert is free. Click here for details.

Plank said that in addition to being personally fond of all the music on the program, choosing the works allowed him to do a little experimenting.

[Read more…]

Klaus Mäkelä returns to The Cleveland Orchestra podium

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by Mike Telin

Since making his Cleveland Orchestra debut in July of 2019, visits by Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä have become highly anticipated events. Tonight at 8:00 pm Mäkelä returns to Severance Music Center to lead the Orchestra in Andrew Norman’s Sustain (replacing Truls Mørk’s Cello Concerto), Debussy’s Images and Ravel’s Boléro. The program will be repeated on Friday at 7:30, Saturday at 8, and Sunday at 3. Tickets are available online

I caught up with the friendly conductor by phone backstage at Severance for a brief chat.

Mike Telin: You just finished a rehearsal — I trust it went well.

Klaus Mäkelä: It did. I can say that I am absolutely delighted to be here. The way they play all of these pieces, especially Images, which is one of the most complicated. There’s so much detail, but that should never be the point, it needs to become part of the piece. But this orchestra is so wonderful, that is not a problem. [Read more…]

Rocky River Chamber Music Society to present the Butler Trio

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by Mike Telin

If you were to ask just about any musician why they enjoy playing chamber music, they will tell you that it’s because they get to make music with people they enjoy. Case in point, the Butler Trio — Sandy Yamamoto (violin), Joshua Gindele (cello), and Colette Valentine (piano).

“We are all on faculty at the University of Texas, but the Trio formed when I left the Miró Quartet back in 2011,” Yamamoto said by telephone from Austin. “Josh [the cellist in the Miró] and I weren’t quite ready to be done with making music together, so we talked about playing in a piano trio. At the time Colette had joined the faculty so we asked her if she would play some trios with us.”

On Monday, February 6 at 7:30 pm at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, the  Rocky River Chamber Music Society will play host to the Butler Trio. The program will include Rachmaninoff’s Trio Élégiaque No. 1, Beethoven’s Piano Trio in D (“Ghost”), and Schumann’s Piano Quartet in E-flat with guest violist Lembi Veskimets. The concert is free. Click here to access the live stream.

[Read more…]

No Exit and Zeitgeist: together again

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by Mike Telin

It’s no secret that the pandemic caused many arts organizations to alter their plans. And while presenting concerts online was a suitable and often enjoyable alternative, they were no replacement for the shared experience of live performances.

On Thursday, February 2 at 8:00 pm at Cleveland State University’s Drinko Recital Hall, No Exit and St. Paul’s Zeitgeist will once again share the stage. “This is the first time in a few years that we’ll be performing together live and in person, and we’re really looking forward to it,” No Exit artistic director Timothy Beyer said during a recent telephone conversation.

The concerts are part of the two ensembles’ annual “Here and There” concert series. No Exit will perform a recent composition by Luis Daniel Jiménez Rojas and give the world premiere of works by Philip Blackburn and Jonathan Posthuma. Zeitgeist will present music by Alvin Lucier and Frederic Rzewski, and the ensembles will collectively perform George Lewis’s Shadowgraph, 5. The program will be repeated on Saturday at 7:00 pm at Heights Arts, and both are free.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: René Izquierdo reconnects with his roots

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by Mike Telin

From the time that Cuban-born guitarist René Izquierdo heard his first live concert as a child, he knew that he wanted to make “connecting with people through music” his life’s work. On Saturday, January 28 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Hts., the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society International Series will present René Izquierdo in a program that highlights his Cuban and Spanish heritage. Tickets are available online.

Speaking by phone from his home in Milwaukee, he began by telling me about his inspiration for his program.

René Izquierdo: I am of Cuban origin but also second generation Spanish. I’ve been living in the United States for 27 years and I’m feeling like I am losing some of my roots. So this program is my attempt to go back and revisit them. The first part is all Cuban music and the second part is all Spanish.

On the Cuban side I have some more modern composers who are guitarists. Then some piano transcriptions from the 19th century — the Nationalistic period. But I did try to pick some lesser known Cuban repertoire. [Read more…]

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