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Akron Symphony: adaptable, exceptional (Jan. 13)

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by Peter Feher

The Akron Symphony pulled off an exceptional concert at E.J. Thomas Hall on January 13 that would have stretched any other ensemble to its limit.

Between the different instrumental configurations and the sheer variety of musical styles, there were what sounded like four distinct orchestras onstage Saturday night.

But the Akron Symphony came up with a pragmatic solution that made the performance possible. Music director Christopher Wilkins kept the ensemble small — scarcely more than 30 musicians for the biggest work of the evening. If the orchestra wasn’t exactly out in full force here, this tight-knit group of players nonetheless had all the power and finesse of a seasoned symphonic unit.

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Accent at the Cleveland Museum of Art (Dec. 8)

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by Peter Feher

Accent’s holiday concert at the Cleveland Museum of Art on December 8 was a hometown affair, even if the six members of this all-male a cappella ensemble had collectively traveled thousands of miles to be there.

The audience in Gartner Auditorium on Friday night cheered on bass Evan Sanders, a South Euclid native who, as the group’s lowest voice, has grounded this far-flung collaboration for more than a decade now.

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Marc-André Hamelin at Severance (Nov. 19)

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by Peter Feher

If Marc-André Hamelin had never studied music, he might have become a great novelist instead. At least, that was the impression that the expert Canadian pianist gave during an engrossing solo performance in Reinberger Chamber Hall on November 19.

Hamelin’s program, perhaps the most ambitious entry in The Cleveland Orchestra’s recital series at Severance Music Center this season, offered a master class in sensitive storytelling.

And the narrative brilliance had everything to do with the alchemical mix of performer and repertoire. On Sunday, Hamelin tackled three multi-movement works whose composers shared a couple of important inclinations. They all were good, but not great pianists themselves, and they all wrote programmatic music, or pieces that tell a story. [Read more…]

Tuesday Musical: Akropolis Reed Quintet (Nov. 7)

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by Peter Feher

It’s not every concert where the bass clarinetist steals the show. But by now, the five close-knit members of the Akropolis Reed Quintet must look forward to that moment in any program when they start Marc Mellits’ Splinter and those first grainy low notes boom out.

The quirky Detroit-based ensemble opened its November 7 performance for Akron’s Tuesday Musical series with this piece, and it was a way to let the audience at E.J. Thomas Hall in on everything they needed to know.

There’s a reason that Mellits’ 2014 composition has become the surest introduction to this novel type of chamber group. [Read more…]

CMA: Le Poème Harmonique (Oct. 25) 

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by Peter Feher

If you had stopped by the Cleveland Museum of Art on Wednesday, Oct. 25, you would have experienced an evening fit for a king. Members of Le Poème Harmonique, the French early music ensemble led by Vincent Dumestre, presented a sophisticated concert in Gartner Auditorium that centered around the tastes and decrees of Louis XIV.

And you couldn’t have asked for a better setting. The dazzling program featured mezzo-soprano Eva Zaïcik and a small group of period instrumentalists in more than a dozen selections that could have been heard during the early years of the Sun King’s reign — when he hadn’t yet moved to Versailles and still kept his court at the Louvre.

The connections with the Museum didn’t stop there. Before the concert, Gabe Pollack, CMA’s Director of Performing Arts, reminded listeners that “French culture is on full display” this fall with the special exhibition Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism. [Read more…]

Renée Fleming & Friends at Severance (Oct. 15) 

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  by Peter Feher

“Farewell” was the final word that the audience heard at Severance Music Center on Sunday, October 15. The evening couldn’t have ended in a more fitting fashion, considering the talent that made this performance in Mandel Concert Hall one for the history books.

In 2017, soprano Renée Fleming disputed The New York Times’ intimation that she was retiring from the operatic stage, but the no-nonsense diva has closed a certain chapter in her singing career in order to embark on another. Since turning 60, Fleming has focused almost exclusively on projects to which she has a personal connection, evangelizing on behalf of the composer-friends who have written pieces for her.

Penelope, by the late musical polymath André Previn, is one such work and something of an all-star chamber production. [Read more…]

Akron Symphony celebrates milestones for itself, and for E.J. Thomas Hall (Sept. 29)

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by Peter Feher

The Akron Symphony fully embraced tradition with its opening-night concert this season. In an all-out performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on September 29 at E.J. Thomas Hall, the Orchestra was recreating a major moment from its history. And at the end of the evening, as the finale of the “Ode to Joy” resounded throughout the hall, the program transformed into a complete celebration.

The choice of music had everything to do with the special occasion. E.J. Thomas turns 50 this year, and to mark that anniversary (and kick off its own 70th season), the Akron Symphony reprised the same piece it played for the hall’s inaugural concert in October 1973.

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CD Review — Wish: Music of Valerie Coleman

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by Peter Feher

Valerie Coleman joined the flute and composition faculty at New York’s Mannes School of Music in 2021, but her work has found a second home at Oberlin Conservatory since then. Wish, the latest release from the Oberlin Music Label, features seven of Coleman’s flute pieces from the past two decades, many of them in their first recordings.

Alexa Still, Oberlin’s professor of flute, isn’t the only major player involved in the project, though her spirit for exploration and education is what unites the album. Elegy, a lively and pulsing work written for Still in 2015 which winds up here as the closing track, has the flutist backed by an ensemble of her students on instruments ranging from piccolo to contrabass flute, all conducted by Timothy Weiss.

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Cleveland Orchestra provides the live soundtrack to ‘Amadeus,’ reveling in the splendor and genius of Mozart (Sept 21)

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This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

By Peter Feher

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The classical season at Severance Music Center got off to a shocking start on Thursday, Sept. 2, with the Cleveland Orchestra’s live performance of the score to Amadeus. In the first half of the evening alone, there was cursing, flatulence, some hanky-panky, an attempted suicide, and much talk of murder — and all because of one 18th-century composer.

The brilliant 1984 film directed by Miloš Forman was adapted from Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play of the same name — Shaffer also wrote the screenplay. Yet nothing about Mozart’s character as portrayed in Amadeus should really scandalize contemporary audiences. The myths and misconceptions around the life and work of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart — he preferred Amadé over Amadeus — would sooner upset a historian than outrage the average 21st-century concertgoer.

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Pianist Mao Fujita leads Cleveland Orchestra in bold performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (Aug 19)

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This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

By Peter Feher

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — The Cleveland Orchestra went into Saturday’s concert at Blossom Music Center with more than a few unknowns. It’s not every week that this ensemble tackles a pair of new pieces, welcomes both a debuting conductor and soloist, and even takes a risk with the order of the evening’s program.

Still, for all the novelty, the Orchestra’s performance on Aug. 19 followed the same satisfying arc of any conventional symphonic concert. In classical music, the formula for success — and one surefire way to get a crowd on its feet — is to save the best for last.

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