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Tuesday Musical presents the Isidore Quartet and pianist Jeremy Denk

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by Mike Telin

If something is meant to be, even a global pandemic can’t keep it from happening. Case in point: the Isidore String Quartet. “Technically we formed at Juilliard in 2019, but we were sent home shortly afterwards. We had not even played together for a full semester.” cellist Joshua McClendon recalled.

After reforming at Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival during the summer of 2021, McClendon and his colleagues — violinists Adrian Steele & Phoenix Avalon and violist Devin Moore — went on to win the 14th Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2022. In 2023 the group was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Tuesday Musical will host the Isidore String Quartet and pianist Jeremy Denk on Tuesday, March 4 at 7:30 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron. The program includes Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F, Gabriella Smith’s Carrot Revolution, and Johannes Brahms’ Quintet for Piano and Strings in f. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with Joshua McClendon via Zoom in Dallas, where the Quartet is the Peak Fellowship Ensemble-in-Residence at Southern Methodist University. I began our conversation by asking him about the program they’re bringing to Akron.

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“Voices from the Other Side:” a conversation with Margi Griebling-Haigh

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by Mike Telin

When composer Margi Griebling-Haigh was asked to write a companion piece for Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, for cello octet and soprano, little did she know that her 1999 work, Voices From the Other Side, a setting of three poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay, would resurface years later as inspiration for a recording project.

The album, “Voices From the Other Side,” was released in September 2024 on Navona Records.

On Tuesday, February 25 at 7:00 pm at Federated Church in Chagrin Falls, the album will be presented live when conductor Steven Smith leads soprano Gabrielle Haigh and the Erie Coast Cellists in Arvo Pärt’s Fratres and L’abbé Agathon, Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, and Margi Griebling-Haigh’s Cantilena and Voices from the Other Side. Tickets are available online.

During a recent telephone conversation, Griebling-Haigh said that when she composed “Voices,” she had no idea that her daughter would go on to become a singer. “She was a little girl when I wrote that piece. She inherited my love for the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay.”

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Les Délices unveils “The Mythology Project”

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By Mike Telin

When Debra Nagy asked Nicholas Phan to think about a non-Western, specifically non-European, myth that could be a fit for Les Délices’ The Mythology Project, he knew exactly where to turn.

“I had been spending a lot of time in Ann Arbor at my parents’ place because their health was starting to decline. And in my childhood bedroom was this very tattered book of Chinese myths that I had as a child,” the Grammy-winning tenor said on a recent Zoom call from Lisbon, Portugal.

“So I thumbed through the book and “The Loss of Memory Myth” jumped out at me. Probably because of what I had been experiencing with my parents’ decline in health and my needing to step up to take care of them. That role reversal really spoke to me.”

This weekend Les Délices will present A Moment’s Oblivion, the first instalment of “The Mythology Project,” a three-year initiative that will bring new life to the secular cantata that was popular in 17th and 18th-century France.

On Saturday at 4:00 pm at Heights Theater and Sunday at 4:00 pm at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, tenor Nicholas Phan, oboist Debra Nagy, violinist Shelby Yamin, violist da gamba Rebecca Landell, and harpsichordist Mark Edwards will perform Michel de Montéclair’s La Bergère & Le Dépit généreux, Marin Marais’ “Le Labyrinthe” from Livre 4ème, and François Couperin’s “Barricades mistérieuses” and “Les Langueurs tendres” from Sixième Ordre. Tickets are available online.

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“Adès Conducts Adès” at Severance: a conversation with Sasha Cooke

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by Mike Telin

When Thomas Adès was commissioned to write a piece for Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic’s “Messages for the Millennium” program, he was asked to compose a “hopeful piece.” But what he delivered was a prophetic work about a country on the verge of crisis.

The two-part work for mezzo-soprano, orchestra, and optional chorus was premiered in New York on November 11, 1999.

On Thursday, February 20 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, Adès will lead The Cleveland Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke in the U.S. premiere of the expanded version of his America: A Prophecy. The concert will also include Jean Sibelius’ The Oceanides, Kaija Saariaho’s Oltra Mar, and Charles Ives’ Orchestral Set No. 2. The program will be repeated on Saturday at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

“It’s a powerful, prophetic work that has a lot of lyricism,” two-time Grammy Award–winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke said during a telephone conversation. “But what first struck me about the piece was its beautiful poetry.”

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No Exit presents trombone virtuoso John Faieta

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by Mike Telin

After taking up the trombone as a nine-year-old, John Faieta went on to carve out a diverse, career as a teacher — he has served on the faculties of Boston University, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Berklee College of Music — as well as performing with the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, the the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra.

He has also worked with jazz and commercial ensembles including The Rebirth Brass Band, John Allmark Big Band, the Hot Tamale Brass Band, Manuel Kaufman’s Jazz Orchestra and the Skatch Andersson Orchestra.

On Friday, February 14 at 7:00 pm in Kent State’s Ludwig Recital Hall, Faieta will present a recital of solo works including Leonard Bernstein’s Elegy for Mippy II (1959), Bernard Rands’ Memo 2 (1973), Enrique Crespo’s Improvisation No. 1 (1983), David Felder’s Boxman (1986), and the World Premiere of Marti Epstein’s Abluvion (2022).

As part of the No Exit Presents series, the program will be repeated at 7:00 pm on Friday, February 21 at Heights Arts, and on Friday, February 28 at 7:00 pm at Trinity Cathedral. All performances are free.

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Chamber Music Societies Join To Celebrate Music from Spain

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By Mike Telin

Unlike other groups that the Cleveland Chamber Music Society presents, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is not a single standing ensemble but rather a collection of talented musicians who come together around a specific project or program.

On Tuesday, February 11 at 7:30 pm at The Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church,  CCMS continues their 75th Anniversary season with the Lincoln Center ensemble’s “Spanish Journey.” The program features works by Fernando Obradors, Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Fernández Arbós, Manuel de Falla, Pablo de Sarasate, Joaquín Rodrigo, and Joaquín Turina performed by guitarist Jason Vieaux, pianist Soyeon Kate Lee, violinist  Kristin Lee, soprano Vanessa Becerra, and cellist Clive Greensmith. Tickets are available online.

We caught up with violinist Kristin Lee by phone in the lobby of Alice Tully Hall after the group had just completed their dress rehearsal for the premiere performance of the program before taking it on tour.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: A Conversation with Thomas Guggeis

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by Mike Telin

“Franz Welser-Möst was one of my first big supporters,” conductor Thomas Guggeis said during a telephone conversation. “I was his assistant at the Salzburg Festival early in my career, so it’s a real honor for me to be making my American orchestral debut with his amazing orchestra.

On Friday, February 7 at 7:30 pm in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, Guggeis will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra, Henri Dutilleux’s Tout un monde lointain…, with principal cello Mark Kosower as soloist, and Maurice Ravel’s La valse. The program will be repeated on Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sunday at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

Born in 1993 in Dachau, Bavaria, Thomas Guggeis has served as general music director of Oper Frankfurt and artistic director of the Frankfurt Museum Concerts since the 2023–24 season. He made his debut in Frankfurt in May 2021 with Mozart’s Requiem, followed by Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. Guggeis made his first North American appearance in 2023 at the Metropolitan Opera leading Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer. The same year he conducted the work for Santa Fe Opera.

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When Grammy nominees are also friends: chatting with Elaine Martone & Erica Brenner

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by Mike Telin

This year’s Grammy Awards recognize the best recordings, compositions, and artists from September 16, 2023, to August 30, 2024, as chosen by the members of the Recording Academy.

While Cleveland artists have been well-represented at the Grammys for some time, when the 67th award ceremony is held at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on February 2 and broadcast at 8 pm EST on CBS, there will be two special reasons to pay attention.

Elaine Martone (left) and Erica Brenner (right), who have been among past Grammy nominees and winners, have both been nominated this time around for Producer of the Year, Classical (Category 82).

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CIM Opera Theater: Direct from the Headlines — Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters

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by Mike Telin

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the CIM Opera Theater’s performances of  Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters on February 1 and 2, 2025, at the Cleveland Museum of Art have been canceled. Refunds are being issued to all ticket holders.

“As an artistic and stage director who enjoys telling stories, this is a very compelling work and something that our students can sink their dramatic teeth into. It’s also a piece that audiences can get lost in, and ask questions about as the story goes along.”

That’s how CIM Opera Theater’s interim artistic director JJ Hudson characterized Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters in a telephone interview. In his synopsis, the composer notes that the 2009 work — his first opera — follows one woman’s dangerous attempt to escape her life as a member of the FLDS Church (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints), a sect that split from mainstream Mormonism in the early 20th Century, largely because of the LDS Church’s renunciation of polygamy. [Read more…]

Cooper International Violin Competition Moves from Summer to January

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By Mike Telin

Now that the new calendar year is upon us, it’s interesting to see which of the area’s classical music organizations are going to be leading the way into 2025.

When it comes to competitions, that honor goes to Oberlin’s Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition, which alternates annually between piano and violin.

Usually held in August, due to construction at the Conservatory this year’s violin competition needed to find an alternative time period. “We wanted the competition to happen so we moved it to January as a one-time thing,” competition director and jury chair Sibbi Bernhardsson said during a telephone conversation.

[Read more…]

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