by Mike Telin
With the overarching theme of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” ENCORE Chamber Music is ready to begin its second season. “Last year was a pilot year for us, so there was a lot of experimentation,” ENCORE founder and artistic director Jinjoo Cho said during an interview. “I think this year is going to be even better. We’ve made some changes to the format, and the level of the students who are attending is even higher.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“This concert is going to be one of the most unique things that I’ve ever done,” celebrated singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge said during a telephone interview. “I’m just so thrilled, excited, and nervous — I’ve got to be on top of my game for this.” On Wednesday, June 7 at 7:30 pm in Severance Hall, Etheridge will join conductor Liza Grossman and her 115-piece Contemporary Youth Orchestra plus a 50-person choir for a concert that will feature some of the legendary singer’s greatest hits, as well as rarely-heard tracks from her multi-decade career. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The popularity of ragtime peaked during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, influencing composers like Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, and Igor Stravinsky. The genre experienced a resurgence during the early 1970s with the publishing of Joshua Rifkin’s and Gunther Schuller’s compilations of music by noted ragtime composer Scott Joplin. But it was the 1973 movie The Sting, and its soundtrack featuring Joplin tunes, that thrust the genre back into popular culture. It was during that same time that American composer William Bolcom published his first set of rags. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Beginning on Friday, June 9 and continuing through Sunday, June 11, Guitars International will present the seventeenth annual Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
“I cannot believe it’s the 17th season,” CICGF founder and artistic director Armin Kelly said during a recent telephone conversation. “Over the years I’ve learned a lot about what to do and what not to do, but it was a steep learning curve.”
Kelly noted that the Festival has grown beyond what he had ever imagined possible. “I was interested in figuring out how to fill a void in the presentation of the classical guitar in Cleveland,” Kelly said. “There were guitar programs at CIM, Oberlin, the University of Akron, and other schools in the area, but there really wasn’t an established concert presenter for the instrument.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Hearing choral music in Trinity Cathedral is always enjoyable, but the experience can become truly magical when the performers are refined and well-disciplined. This was the case on Wednesday, May 3 when the Collegium Musicum Oberliniense, under the direction of Steven Plank, performed a captivating program titled “Touches of Sweet Harmony.” The concert was presented as part of the Cathedral’s popular Brownbag series. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
On his way to winning the 2016 Cleveland International Piano Competition, Nikita Mndoyants gave a thrilling performance of Prokofiev’s dissonant Sonata No. 7 in B-flat during his semi-final round. The pianist returned to Cleveland on April 30 to give an impressive recital at the Maltz Performing Arts Center. And again, he proved to have an affinity for the music of the Russian composer. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
ChamberFest Cleveland has done it again and come up with eleven intriguing programs for their sixth season, which will run from June 15 through July 1.
This year, co-artistic directors Franklin and Diana Cohen have put a new spin on the Festival. Cycles: Phases! reflects on the complexity of the human experience at each stage of life.
There will be many familiar faces onstage, as well as a number of performers who are new to the ChamberFest family. As always, programs will be presented in a variety of venues, from the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall and CWRU’s Harkness Chapel to modern, urban settings such as Hingetown’s Transformer Station and the Bop Stop, and Midtown’s Dunham Tavern Museum. Tickets are now on sale. Click here for further information.
by Mike Telin
What do you think of when you hear horn calls filling the hall with majestic sound during Haydn’s The Seasons, or any Mahler symphony? Perhaps you visualize hunting, a warning of encroaching armies, or a ship sailing into a foggy harbor.
What listeners think of when hearing such musical gestures served as inspiration for Anthony Cheung’s new work, Topos, which will receive its world premiere by The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst this week at Severance Hall. Check our concert listings page for dates and times.
In the program notes, Cheung, the Orchestra’s ninth Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow, writes:
Each movement is based on one or several related musical topics: representational tropes with special recurring characteristics that evoke scenery, psychological affect, natural and cultural phenomena, etc. The fluidity of meaning in these topics fascinates me. For example, horn calls were originally indicative of hunting, signaling, and fanfare but reemerged in the 19th century as symbols of nostalgia and even leave-taking. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
After three performances of Debussy’s opera Pelléas and Mélisande last week, the spirit of theater continues at Severance Hall when Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in Felix Mendelssohn’s incidental music to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with soprano Anya Matanovic, mezzo-soprano Emily Fons, and members of TCO’s Youth Chorus.
The program, to be presented on Thursday at 7:30 pm, Sunday at 8:00 pm, and Sunday at 3:00 pm, also includes Hans Werner Henze’s Il Vitalino raddoppiato, based on a chaconne by the Baroque composer Vitali, featuring violinist Julia Fischer.
“Shakespeare’s play is full of fairies, dwarves, elves, and demons,” Israeli actor Itay Tiran, who will be the narrator, said during a recent telephone conversation. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“This concerto is unlike others — it exists on a different playing field,” Catharine Baek said about Maurice Ravel’s challenging Piano Concerto in G. On Friday, May 12 at 8:00 pm, Baek will make her Severance Hall debut as the soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, performing Ravel’s jazz-inspired work. The concert, under the direction of Brett Mitchell, will also include Joan Tower’s Made in America and Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5.
Baek, a junior at Willoughby South High School and a second-year member of COYO’s percussion section, earned the opportunity to perform the Ravel by winning the Orchestra’s annual concerto competition. [Read more…]