by Peter Feher
The Cleveland Orchestra could have partnered with the Cleveland Museum of Art for last weekend’s concerts. The give-and-take between composers and visual artists — and the historical movements that emerged in the process — inspired the program on Thursday, April 7 at Severance Music Center.
Actually, some of the Orchestra’s players — along with the week’s soloist, pianist Emanuel Ax — did end up at the museum the following evening, for a benefit concert in support of Ukraine. But before their night off, the performers put the relationship between music and art on dazzling display for the audience at Severance. Alan Gilbert conducted four works that ranged from the 19th century to the 21st and that showed what’s changed in the culture since. [Read more…]
The Akron Symphony set last weekend’s program moving — spinning, scurrying, and leaping across the stage, even if the musicians stayed in their seats. The April 2 concert at E.J. Thomas Hall brought out the dance element in a range of orchestral works, sometimes literally. Choreography, from ballet to flamenco to traditional Korean dance, accompanied two of the evening’s pieces.
The Cleveland Museum of Art showed off a new piece last week, though one that didn’t hang on a wall. The musical work in question — Stacy Garrop’s In a House Besieged — had its world premiere at Gartner Auditorium on Friday, March 25.
If you were assembling an all-star chamber group, you couldn’t do much better than the Rosamunde String Quartet. The ensemble — a passion project for its members, who play in the string sections of some of the world’s top orchestras most of the year — visited the Cleveland Chamber Music Society on March 15.
Wu Wei is one of the world’s best players of an instrument you’ve likely never heard. The Chinese sheng virtuoso took advantage of this fact from the start of his dazzling program at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on March 11.
The Cleveland Orchestra kept the music-making all in the family last week. Franz Welser-Möst conducted, a favorite composer stopped by, and first associate concertmaster Peter Otto played soloist, taking on a piece with its own history at Severance.
Ever since the pandemic upended concert schedules, the Akron Symphony has used the opportunity to expand its community offerings. The orchestra played a summer series in 2021, “Outside Voices,” the name alluding both to the changed setting — parks across the city — and to new programming — music outside the standard repertoire.
The Harlem Quartet might consider changing its name to include an honorary fifth member. The string ensemble took the stage as part of Akron’s Tuesday Musical series on March 1, joined by pianist and composer Aldo López-Gavilán, whose close connection to the group brought out the best in each player.
Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time is already a production in itself. The music alone, not to mention the circumstances of its composition, is a lot to untangle.
When it comes to Handel’s oratorios, another repeat isn’t always a welcome thing. But Apollo’s Fire knows how to make an evening exciting, and the group’s reprise performances of the composer’s