by Mike Telin
“I just got back from Portugal last night, so I’m playing catch-up here,” conductor Nicholas McGegan said during a telephone call last Sunday morning from his home in San Francisco. “I’ve been away for two weeks so I’m going through the mail and all that stuff. But I’m in California and the sun is shining so it’s all well. I leave in the morning to come to Cleveland.”
On Friday, November 17 at Severance Hall, McGegan will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in an 11:00 am matinee and a Fridays@7 performance. On Saturday the 18th McGegan and company will present a full-length concert beginning at 8:00 pm. For program and ticket information click here.
“I’m looking forward to Cleveland because I’ve got Marc-André Hamelin coming, who is wonderful. I can’t wait. [Read more…]
Like many musicians, British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor’s career received a jump start after winning a competition. “I won the keyboard section of the BBC Young Musician in 2004, and this began my performing career,” Grosvenor said in an email. “Obviously I was very young at that point and did not play very much, but the attention from the competition brought me concerts.” The pianist later became part of BBC’s Radio 3 New Generation Artist Scheme, which he said was “particularly important for my career, leading to opportunities such as performing at the BBC Proms as well as giving vital recording experience and the possibility to develop relationships with the BBC orchestras.”
Enjoying the natural beauty of Lake Erie has always been part of composer Margaret Brouwer’s life — she grew up spending summers at her family’s lake cottage in Huron. But when dangerous levels of algae blooms in the Lake’s western basin caused a water crisis in Toledo in 2014, the ensuing national conversation about environmental pollution and the state of the country’s drinking water became the source of inspiration for Brouwer’s latest composition, 
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, as epitomized by Euripides’ infamous character Medea. After her husband Jason rejects her for another woman in order to further his political career, she will stop at nothing to get revenge, including murdering her own children.