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Apollo’s Fire to feature flamenco guitarist Jeremy Garcia in ¡HISPANIA! concerts

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by Mike Telin

On Wednesday, May 28 at 7:30 pm in Harkness Chapel, Apollo’s Fire will present a send-off concert of their popular program ¡HISPANIA! before traveling to Puerto Rico to perform at the Casals Festival.

When they return, the ensemble will bring a new version of that program to the Holden Arboretum in Kirtland for five performances from June 5–8 and to Avon Lake United Church of Christ for a single performance on June 9. Tickets are available online.

This all-instrumental version of ¡HISPANIA! led by Jeannette Sorrell features the lively dance rhythms of “tangos and fandangos” from Spain and Argentina. An 11-piece ensemble explores the influence of Arab-infused flamenco dance music on Spanish Baroque composers – including Diego Ortiz, Gaspar Sanz, and Santiago de Murcia.

[Read more…]

No Exit: The International Sounds of The Collective

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by Mike Telin

Big things are happening for the innovative new music ensemble No Exit. In June they will embark on a two-week European tour that will include stops in Greece, Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands.

If you’re unable to follow the ensemble to Europe, but want to hear their tour program, you’re in luck. On Wednesday, May 28 in Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art, No Exit will play works by members of The Collective, an international consortium of composers that includes Agata Zubel, Mathew Rosenblum, Douglas Knehans, Spiros Mazis, Amy Kaplan, Constantine Koukias, Edward Smalldone, and Timothy Beyer. The program will be repeated on Friday, May 30 at The Bop Stop and Saturday, May 31 at Heights Arts. All concerts begin at 7:00 pm and are free.

No Exit’s Laura King spoke to Spiros Mazis and Agata Zubel. The interviews are reprinted with the permission of No Exit. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland Season 13 — “Lost and Found”

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by Mike Telin

Programming a summer music festival is not easy. There are so many pieces of the puzzle — not all of them artistic — that need to fit together.

But undaunted, ChamberFest Cleveland artistic directors Diana Cohen, Franklin Cohen, and Roman Rabinovich, along with executive director Jessica Peek Sherwood, have assembled what promises to be the most interesting Festival to date. With the theme of “Lost and Found,” season thirteen runs from June 11–28. Click here for tickets and more information.

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The Cleveland Orchestra Opera and Humanities Festival: “Vox Humana”

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by Mike Telin

We have all been there — sitting near someone who is having a telephone conversation. We don’t know who is on the other end of the call, but we do know the person near you is not pleased — their tone of voice and body language makes that clear.

It’s a similar one-sided telephone conversation that serves as the basis for Francis Poulenc’s forty-minute-long, one-act opera, La voix humaine. This week at Severance Music Center, French soprano Sarah Aristidou will make her Cleveland Orchestra debut in Poulenc’s mono-drama under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst.

The performances — Friday, May 23 at 7:30 pm and Saturday, May 24 at 8:00 pm — are presented as part of The Orchestra’s Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Opera and Humanities Festival. Tickets are available online.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: Jenůfa, an opera about reconciliation

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by Mike Telin

The 2025 edition of The Cleveland Orchestra’s Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Opera and Humanities Festival has adopted “Reconciliation” as its theme.

No opera treats the power of forgiveness and reconciliation better than Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa. Set in a rural Moravian village, its intense drama centers around Jenůfa, who gives birth to an illegitimate child, and her stepmother the Kostelnička (the church sacristan), who kills the baby in order to protect Jenůfa’s honor and, more importantly, her future.

On Saturday, May 17 at 7:00 pm in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Janáček’s 1904 opera based on Gabriela Preissová’s play Její pastorkyňa (Her Stepdaughter).

The cast features sopranos Latonia Moore (Jenůfa) and Nina Stemme (Kostelnička) and tenors Samuel Levine (Laca) and Miles Mykkanen (Števa). The production will be repeated on Thursday, May 22 at 7:00 pm and Sunday, May 25 at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

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Cleveland Chamber Choir celebrates tenth birthday

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by Mike Telin

On Saturday, May 17 at 7:30 pm in Trinity Cathedral, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Choir present “I Believe! Knitted Voices of Justice and Faith,” with conductor Daniel Meyer and soprano Katherine Jolly. The program includes Margaret Bonds’ Credo and Mozart’s “Great” Mass in c. Pay-what-you-wish tickets are available at the door and online.

The concert also marks the culmination of the tenth anniversary season for Cleveland Chamber Choir. We spoke to CCC’s president, Melissa Vandergriff, who helped found the Choir in 2015 along with the ensemble’s first artistic director, Scott MacPherson. We also spoke to ensemble member and executive director Kira McGirr as well as Gregory Ristow, who became the group’s second artistic director in August 2023. [Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra turns fifteen! (Part 2)

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by Mike Telin

On Saturday, May 17 at 7:30 pm in Trinity Cathedral, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Choir present “I Believe! Knitted Voices of Justice and Faith,” with conductor Daniel Meyer and soprano Katherine Jolly. The program includes Margaret Bonds’ Credo and Mozart’s “Great” Mass in c. Pay-what-you-wish tickets are available at the door and online.

The concert also marks the culmination of the fifteenth anniversary season for BlueWater Chamber Orchestra. We spoke to BlueWater founding member and administrator Nancy Patterson and music director Daniel Meyer.

[Read more…]

Broadway School of Music & the Arts: Brass & Bubbly — and a farewell

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by Mike Telin

Since 1983, the Broadway School of Music & the Arts has been providing the Slavic Village neighborhood with one-on-one instrumental and voice lessons, with a focus on community arts education and outreach.

On Friday, May 9 at The Darl Center for the Arts, you can help support the school’s activities by attending Brass & Bubbly. The evening will feature a 7:30 pm concert by the Factory Seconds Brass Trio, made up of Cleveland Orchestra members Jack Sutte (trumpet), Richard Stout (trombone), and Richard King (horn). The program will include music by Jacques Arcadelt, J.S. Bach, Arthur Frackenpohl, Maurice Bardin, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Amy Beach, and Joel Love.

Before and after the concert guests are invited to tour The Darl Center’s personal art collection of owner Darl Schaaf. The event will also celebrate the retirement of Barbara Bachtell, BSMA’s long-time executive director. Click here for tickets and more information.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: Allison Loggins-Hull’s Grit. Grace. Glory.

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by Mike Telin

When Allison Loggins-Hull was named The Cleveland Orchestra’s Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow, she hoped that the three-year fellowship would culminate in a large work informed by the city the Orchestra calls home. And she thought the best way to do that was to get to know its people and community organizations.

“It takes time to do this kind of work in a meaningful way,” she told ClevelandClassical.com during a May 2023 interview. “During my initial visit last fall, which was the first time I was ever in Cleveland, I spent time at museums, the Fatima Family Center, Global Cleveland, Karamu House, Cleveland School for the Arts, and The Baseball Heritage Museum. All of these offered very different tastes of Cleveland in an effort to introduce myself and let people know what I was envisioning.”

On Thursday, May 8 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst, The Cleveland Orchestra will present the world premiere of Loggins-Hull’s Grit. Grace. Glory — a musical story inspired by the people and history of Cleveland. The concert also includes Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 and Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4. The program will be repeated on Friday at 11:00 am (no Prokofiev) and Saturday at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra: a conversation with pianist Saya Uejima

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by Mike Telin

Saya Uejima has served as keyboardist of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra since 2023, a position she enjoys very much. “I love having fun and collaborating with other people, whether it’s being part of the orchestra or playing chamber music,” she said during a telephone conversation.

Her position with COYO has also provided her with such opportunities as learning how to play the celesta and Severance Hall’s Norton Memorial Organ. “That was very new to me, because I did not know how to use the pedals or how to set up the stops.”

On Sunday, May 4 at 3:00 pm, Saya Uejima will move to the front of the Severance Music Center stage when she performs Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra. Under the direction of Daniel Reith, the program also includes Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Something for the Dark and Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations. [Read more…]

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