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Kahchun Wong brings Akutagawa, Shostakovich, and Debussy to Blossom this weekend

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by Mike Telin

The opportunity for conductor Kahchun Wong to make his Cleveland Orchestra debut in April of 2022 came when visa issues prevented François-Xavier Roth from leading that week’s concerts. On Saturday, July 22 at 7:00 pm, Wong will return to the podium, this time at Blossom Music Center, to lead a program that includes Yasushi Akutagawa’s Music for Symphony Orchestra, Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 with Zlatomir Fung as soloist, and Debussy’s La mer. Tickets are available online.

“I’m so excited to be returning to Cleveland, especially with this program,” Wong said during a telephone call from his home near Kanagawa, Japan. He added that it was fitting for us to be talking on Monday, July 17. “Today is Sea Day — it’s a public holiday and there are a lot of festivals.” He noted that the holiday is a time for people to give thanks for the sea. “Where I live — on the coast — I can see Mt. Fuji. It always gives me inspiration. And today it, and the sea, are beautiful.”

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Cellist Zlatomir Fung brings Shostakovich for his July 22 Cleveland Orchestra debut

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by Mike Telin

If asked, many musicians can tell you exactly when they heard a piece of music that changed their lives. For Zlatomir Fung that piece was Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1. “I must have been eleven years old,” Fung recalled during a recent interview. “I believe it was the debut recording that Rostropovich made with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and it was one of the first cello videos that was on YouTube. I came across it and I was just blown away. And that was the recording that made me want to be a cellist.”

On Saturday, July 22 at 7:00 pm, Fung will bring that concerto to the Blossom Music Center stage when he makes his Cleveland Orchestra debut. The program, under the direction of Kahchun Wong, also includes Yasushi Akutagawa’s Music for Symphony Orchestra and Debussy’s La mer. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with the celebrated young cellist by phone and began by asking him to share his thoughts about playing with The Cleveland Orchestra for the first time.

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ChamberFest Cleveland: “Words Misunderstood” (June 30)

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by Mike Telin

On Friday, June 30, ChamberFest Cleveland presented a delightful evening of chamber music to a capacity audience at Dunham Tavern. The program, “Words Misunderstood,” included an oddity by György Ligeti, ear-catching 21st-century works by Caroline Shaw and Gabriella Smith, and some engaging German Romanticism by Max Bruch.

Performed without the “obligatory” intermission, the concert began with György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique (for 100 metronomes). An oddity or an absurdity, depending on your point of view, here the work was presented as Ligeti intended — as a serious piece of music. Ten musicians made their way to their groups of ten mechanical metronomes, each set to a different tempo, all of them sitting on the wooden shelf that ran along three walls of the venue.

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Stanislav Kochanovsky brings Rachmaninoff for his Cleveland Orchestra debut

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by Mike Telin

“Every debut with a new orchestra is a special moment you never forget. But the famous Cleveland Orchestra is definitely one of the most extraordinary musical institutions in the world,” Russian conductor Stanislav Kochanovsky wrote in an email. “I have so many of their historical recordings with Erich Leinsdorf, George Szell, and Lorin Maazel in my private collection and I can’t wait to hear the unique voice of the orchestra with my own ears.”

Next week he will have just that opportunity. On Saturday, July 15 at 7:00 pm at Blossom Music Center, Kochanovsky will lead an all-Rachmaninoff program featuring the Symphony No. 1 and the Piano Concerto No. 3 with Nikolai Lugansky as soloist. Tickets are available online.

Mike Telin: You’re bringing a wonderful program. Why did you choose these particular pieces?

Stanislav Kochanovsky: This year the whole world is celebrating Rachmaninoff’s 150th  anniversary. As I have almost all of his works in my repertoire, I proposed the rarely performed and not so well known First Symphony. Later I found out that The Cleveland Orchestra has never performed it in their history. This fact makes my debut even more exciting! As for the Piano Concerto, I think it was the soloist’s choice.

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ChamberFest Cleveland: “Vortex” (June 25)

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by Mike Telin

If you are familiar with William Cowper’s 1785 poem The Task, then you know the famous line “Variety is the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor.” On Sunday, June 25 at Harkness Chapel, ChamberFest Cleveland presented a program that was steeped in musical variety and spices for the ear.

Written in 1977, Alfred Schnittke’s Moz-Art (after the fragment K. 416d) is based on the first violin part from Mozart’s unpublished pantomime, with dollops of the opening theme of his 40th Symphony stirred into the mix. The quirky five-minute work for two violins asks the players to throw caution to the winds as they seemingly compete to see who can turn a classical line into something absurd faster than the other.

The performance by Itamar Zorman and Diana Cohen was bust-your-gut funny. Bowed notes turned into plucked ones, then scratchings, in tune became out of tune, and slow tempos became fast enough to break the sound barrier. Hilarity ensued when the players swapped out their instruments, Zorman grabbing a very tiny violin while Cohen opted for a viola. After reclaiming their rightful fiddles, the players mischievously walked away whistling.

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ChamberFest Cleveland: “Fidelity and Betrayal” (June 17)

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by Mike Telin

From the beginning, ChamberFest Cleveland’s artistic directors have turned to creative themes for their programming inspiration. This season the Festival’s guiding light has taken a literary slant with Lightness of Being — after Milan Kundera’s 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. But don’t feel like you need to have read the novel to enjoy the concerts — Donald Rosenberg’s brilliantly written program notes will tell you what you need to know.

On Saturday, June 17 in CIM’s Mixon Hall, the program “Fidelity and Betrayal” included works from the standard repertoire, a never-performed work by a well-known composer, a piece inspired by Cuban and South American dances, and music that had never been heard before — anytime, anywhere.

 

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Dröhnen/Dröna — Re:Sound Festival of New and Experimental Music (June 11)

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by Mike Telin

My experience with sound installations is that you never know what to expect. Sometimes the sound adds ambience to — perhaps a walk through an enchanted garden. Other times it’s simply made me feel anxious.

But what is a sound installation? Basically it’s placing a sound system in a room. Yet describing a sound installation becomes a bit more complicated — is it visual art? Is it experimental music? Or is it a combination of both? In the end, does it need to fit into any category? After all, it is about the experience — aural and physical.

By far the most interesting experience I have had with sound was standing inside an organ case while the pipes were being tuned. To feel the dissonances and hear the beats gradually move into a perfect unison is something everyone should experience.

So it was a wonderful surprise to walk into the Pivot Center on June 11 at 11:30 am to be greeted by sound artist Bob Drake, whose installation Dröhnen/Dröna was featured as part of this month’s Re:Sound Festival of New and Experimental Music. Drake showed my colleague and me into a large room bathed in soft shades of blue. On the floor, along the left wall, were two ranks of organ pipes and a traditional pipe organ windchest.

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ChamberFest Cleveland: Robin VanLear has fun with The Carnival of the Animals

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by Mike Telin

There are times when we all — even composers — need a little fun in our lives.

On February 9, 1886 Camille Saint-Saëns wrote to his publisher, saying that although he should be working on his Third Symphony, he was writing a piece for Shrove Tuesday that was “… mais c’est si amusant!” (such fun). That “fun” piece, which premiered on March 3, 1886, was none other than Le Carnaval des animaux (“The Carnival of the Animals”).

While Saint-Saëns forbade the 14-movement comical piece to be performed in public, feeling it would damage his reputation as a serious composer, lucky for us, the piece was published after the composer’s death and has since become one of his most popular works.

On Saturday, June 24 at 7:30 pm, ChamberFest Cleveland will present a staged production of the zoological fantasy at CIM’s Kulas Hall. The program also features György Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles, Salina Fisher’s Kintsugi for Piano Trio, and Lukas Foss’s Capriccio for Cello and Piano. Tickets are available online.

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Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival: 
a recital by Hao Yang (June 4)

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by Mike Telin

The presentation of young and emerging artists has always been a priority for the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival. And for Festival followers it’s an opportunity to be made aware of young guitarists, and then watch them mature as musicians.   

In 2017 CICGF introduced Cleveland audiences to Hao Yang (China). “[She] attended two years ago as a student [and] impressed everyone with the way that she played in the master classes,” Festival founder and artistic director Armin Kelly recalled during an interview that year with this publication. 

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Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival: the Patterson-Sutton Duo (June 4)

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by Mike Telin

The best chamber music performances are the ones where the synergy of the players is so captivating that you simply sit back, relax, and let yourself get lost in the music. Such was the case when the Patterson-Sutton Duo — Kimberly Patterson (cello) and Patrick Sutton (guitar) — made a return visit to the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival on Sunday afternoon, June 4.

With the spring sunshine flowing through the windows of the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall, the Duo led listeners down a path of musical delights drawn from the late 20th and 21st centuries. 

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