by Mike Telin
A good song is a good song, and for centuries vocal music has been a fruitful source of repertoire for instrumentalists. In “Songs Without Words,” Les Délices artistic director Debra Nagy has created an inspired program that juxtaposes 17th-century art songs with 20th-century jazz standards. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
For hundreds of years some of the greatest music ever written was composed for houses of worship — think of composers such as Palestrina, J.S. Bach, and Moses Hogan. “It’s no mystery why music is so important in the life of a church, but people here can’t seem to get enough of it,” said Geoffrey Peterson, Director of Music and the Arts at John Knox Presbyterian Church in North Olmsted.
On Friday, October 28 at 8:00 pm, the John Knox Performance Series will kick off its third season with a performance by the Cleveland Chamber Choir under the direction of Scott MacPherson. The program, titled “Americana,” will include music by William Billings, Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, John Cage, Samuel Barber, and Stephen Foster, as well as folk songs and spirituals. Read a concert preview here. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The Boulez Legacy will continue on Wednesday, October 26 at 8:00 pm in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music with a faculty recital featuring the new music ensemble Ars Futura. The program, titled “Boulez the Modernist II,” will feature works by Pierre Boulez, John Cage, Mario Davidovsky, György Ligeti, and Olivier Messiaen.
“I’m honored to be a part of this series, and I learned a lot about Boulez when choosing this repertoire, pianist Shuai Wang said during a recent conference call that included flutist Madeline Lucas Tolliver. “I remember hearing a concert Boulez conducted with The Cleveland Orchestra when I first came to CIM to study — it was amazing,” Wang said. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The first in a series of articles highlighting the world premiere of Roger Briggs’ Fountain of Youth.
The prospect of performing a newly-composed work is always exciting. On Friday, November 18 at 8:00 pm at Severance Hall, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (COYO) under the direction of Brett Mitchell will have that opportunity when they present the world premiere of Roger Briggs’ Fountain of Youth, commissioned by COYO. The program will also include Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 (“Romantic”).
Premiering Briggs’ eighteen-minute tone poem is especially exciting for Brett Mitchell. “It’s impossible to overestimate the impact Roger Briggs had on me,” the conductor said during a telephone conversation. “If it weren’t for the opportunities he provided me, I wouldn’t be here now.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
CityMusic Cleveland, under the direction of music director Avner Dorman, will kick off its season this week with a program featuring Dorman’s After Brahms — Three Intermezzi, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with soloist Sayaka Shoji, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4. The first of five area performances will be presented on Wednesday, October 19 at 7:30 pm at Fairmount Temple. See our Concert Listings page for additional times and locations.
Prior to Shoji’s appearances with CityMusic in October of 2015, she spoke with ClevelandClassical.com and talked about her childhood, her passion for jazz, and her fascination with all things connected to the ‘70s. The following is a reprint of that interview. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
When asked to create a work commemorating the 2013 centenary of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (Le Sacré du printemps), composer Vijay Iyer began to think about what lay at the heart of Stravinsky’s groundbreaking ballet score.
“Given that Le Sacre is a fantasy of the folkloric springtime ritual from some mythic ancient past in Russia, I thought it was an opportunity for us to deal in a reality-based way with that transformative period of springtime as it is expressed, celebrated, and experienced in Indian culture,” Iyer said during a telephone conversation from Portugal.
On October 19 at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium, Vijay Iyer and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) will perform Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi, with film by Prashant Bhargava. The program will also include the premiere of an arrangement of The Rite of Spring by Cliff Colnot. The concert is presented in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibition, Art and Stories from Mughal India. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“Instrumentalists, especially during the last couple of decades of the 17th century, would often turn to vocal music as a source of repertory for their solo playing,” said Debra Nagy, Les Délices Artistic Director, during a recent interview. “This program uses that idea as its point of departure and brings the concept into the 20th century with jazz standards arranged for and improvised by the ensemble.”
On Saturday, October 15 at 8:00 pm at SPACES, and on Sunday at 4:00 pm at Herr Chapel, Plymouth Church, Les Délices will kick off its new season with a program titled “Songs Without Words.” The program will feature torch songs spanning the 17th to 20th centuries, including music by Michel Lambert, Marin Marais, Billy Strayhorn, and Nina Simone. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
It’s all abo
ut Sō Percussion in Akron this week. On Wednesday, October 12 at 7:00 pm in Guzzetta Recital Hall, Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting will team up with the University of Akron’s Percussion Ensemble for a performance of Steve Reich’s groundbreaking composition Drumming as part of Tuesday Musical’s FUZE series.
Then on Saturday, October 15 at 8:00 pm in E.J. Thomas Hall, Sō Percussion will join Christopher Wilkins and the Akron Symphony in Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang’s man made for percussion quartet and orchestra. The evening will also include Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Overture to The Wasps, Tan Dun’s Secret of Wind and Birds, and Gustav Holst’s The Planets. Lang and Wilkins will present the concert’s “Preview from the Podium” at 7:00 pm. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
On Saturday, October 15 at 8:00 pm in E.J. Thomas Hall, Sō Percussion will join Christopher Wilkins and the Akron Symphony in Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang’s man made for percussion quartet and orchestra. Lang and Wilkins will present the concert’s “Preview from the Podium” at 7:00 pm. The concert is presented in collaboration with Tuesday Musical Association.
Written for Sō Percussion, man made was commissioned by London’s Barbican Center and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The ensemble premiered the work at the Barbican with the BBC Symphony in May of 2013. The American premiere was given in October of 2014 by Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic. During the 22-minute piece, Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting will snap twigs and strike everything from wine bottles to a steel drum, a trap set, xylophones, and “found” instruments. View a trailer here. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
When Polish guitarist Marcin Dylla performed in Cleveland in April of 2013, James Flood, writing for this publication, said that “Dylla is a player of the utmost refinement. His tone is beautiful, his phrasing lovely and heartfelt.” On Saturday, October 15 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, the award-winning artist will return to the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society stage.
His program will feature Mauro Giuliani’s Sonata in C, Op. 15, Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Five Preludes, Roberto Sierra’s Sonata, Manuel Maria Ponce’s Theme, Variations and Fugue on Folia de España, and Benjamin Britten’s Nocturnal, Op. 70. Click here for more information. [Read more…]