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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.

[Read more…]

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.

[Read more…]

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.

[Read more…]

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.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra delivers charming resourceful spin on Mozart at Blossom Music Center (Aug 12)

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This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

(Photo: Roger Mastroianni)

By Peter Feher

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — In a playful twist, this summer’s all-Mozart program at Blossom Music Center featured a couple of pieces that weren’t by Mozart.

Call it counterintuitive, but The Cleveland Orchestra’s concert on Saturday, Aug. 12 stayed true to the spirit of this singular composer. The traits that typify Mozart’s style — a combination of instant charm and endless resourcefulness — were also the qualities that brought together the entire evening.

[Read more…]

Kent Blossom Music Festival: students step in for faculty (Aug. 2)

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by Peter Feher

The crowd at Ludwig Recital Hall on August 2 got a sneak peek of the Kent Blossom Music Festival’s annual side-by-side concert with The Cleveland Orchestra.

A mix of student and faculty players took the stage for Wednesday’s program, which was originally meant to feature a trio of past and present Orchestra members. Assistant principal flutist Jessica Sindell still anchored the performance, but her colleagues — pianist Joela Jones and cellist Richard Weiss — had to withdraw, with Jones citing health reasons. Two student chamber ensembles, coached by Jones and Sindell, were ready to step in, bringing some of the waiting-in-the-wings energy that makes each summer at Kent Blossom so stimulating.

The standout piece of the evening was destined to make a splash. [Read more…]

Cellist Zlatomir Fung brings Shostakovich to his Cleveland Orchestra debut (July 22)

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by Peter Feher

The Cleveland Orchestra put together an intricate and intriguing musical puzzle on July 22 at Blossom Music Center. Each piece on the brilliantly balanced program — which showcased the sensibilities shared by 20th-century composers in France, the Soviet Union, and Japan — held the key to understanding and appreciating the others.

The Orchestra, guest conductor Kahchun Wong, and the evening’s soloist, cellist Zlatomir Fung, (left) were more than up to the task of fitting it all together. Spareness, precision, and sensitivity to detail were the features uniting the mix of repertoire, and the musicians gave superb performances where not a note was wasted.

Claude Debussy’s La mer is a study in symphonic texture — all the more beguiling because the composer was not, by usual standards, a master orchestrator. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Carnival of the Animals” (June 24)

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by Peter Feher

Camille Saint-Saëns forbade public performances of The Carnival of the Animals during his lifetime, but he might have made an exception for ChamberFest Cleveland this summer.

On June 24 at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Kulas Hall, ChamberFest conjured some of the informal spirit of Saint-Saëns’ lighthearted work as it would have been heard in 1886 among the composer’s circle of intimates. It was in keeping with ChamberFest’s theme this season — “Lightness of Being” — even when the evening seemed elaborate and embellished and the music-making sounded seriously first-rate. [Read more…]

Many sides of Mozart with Labadie and The Cleveland Orchestra (Apr. 20)

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by Peter Feher

Mozart was the main event at Severance Music Center on April 20, but The Cleveland Orchestra gave only a teaser of what it can do with this great composer.

Chalk it up to the small and generally intimate scale of the performance. Guest conductor Bernard Labadie, a specialist in 18th-century repertoire, led the Orchestra — pared down to period-ensemble numbers — in half a dozen Mozart pieces, many of them excerpts from longer works. You could think of the program as a preview for next season here in Cleveland, which opens with a soundtrack of the composer’s greatest hits (accompanying the film Amadeus live in concert) and closes with a production of The Magic Flute.

On Thursday, everything was building to Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 (“Jupiter”). [Read more…]

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