by Peter Feher
If you were sitting in Mixon Hall last Wednesday, you might have thought you were in the midst of a recording session rather than a recital. And with good reason: the Catalyst Quartet was in top form playing a program that previewed several works on the group’s upcoming album.
The performance hardly counted as a sneak peek, though. The repertoire the ensemble settled on for its June 8 concert at the Cleveland Institute of Music, part of this year’s Lev Aronson Cello Festival, consisted of pieces the Quartet has lived with for some time (in a couple of cases, since its founding a decade ago). In addition to the usual close-knit connections among members of a chamber group, the Catalyst players had the extra benefit of all the familiarity that comes from having a long relationship with a work of music.
The guitar is an instrument that can travel anywhere and play just about anything. Listeners got the chance to take in some of that variety at the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival, which returned in person to the Cleveland Institute of Music last weekend. Original arrangements and inventive pairings — pieces with harp, cello, and more — added to the schedule, but a sense of what makes a performance “classical” emerged as well.
The Cleveland Orchestra worked overtime last weekend, making every note count. The season at Severance Music Center came to a close with final performances of Verdi’s Otello, plus two additional programs that showed just how much repertoire the players can master. These special, one-off concerts, presented under the banner “Breaking Convention,” fit the experimental model the ensemble has established in recent years, trying out tricky music in unconventional formats around the schedule of an opera.
Franz Welser-Möst led the final bows on Saturday night at Severance, like the star of any show should. The Cleveland Orchestra’s music director is in his element presiding over the ensemble’s annual opera production, which this season packs the drama. Verdi’s Otello — in a concert staging that opened May 21 and runs for two more performances (May 26 and 29) — demands big voices, instrumental forces to match, and a conductor who can give it all shape and direction. 
Tuesday Musical has been straying from its usual formula in a way that seems to be working. The Akron concert series brought its season to a close last Wednesday with a performance that exemplified the “classical with a twist” style the presenter has hit upon lately.
Many conductors are happy to travel from orchestra to orchestra with the same set of pieces. Not Michael Tilson Thomas, who brought a unique but instantly recognizable program to Severance Music Center over the weekend.
Lawrence Brownlee was still in master-class mode when he visited the Cleveland Chamber Music Society on April 26. The star tenor, born and raised in Youngstown, brought an educational element to his recital at the Maltz Performing Arts Center.
A recital by Evgeny Kissin isn’t over when it ends. Anyone who’s kept up with the Russian pianist’s career — he was last in Cleveland 25 years ago — knew what to expect on Sunday, April 24 at Severance Music Center. After the final billed piece, Kissin returned to the stage four more times, playing a set of encores that made for a third act to the evening.
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.
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.