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Cleveland Women’s Orchestra celebrates 90 years at Severance (Mar. 30)

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by Stephanie Manning

Of the many orchestra performances held at Severance Music Center in a given year, only one of them features a musician roster made up entirely of women. This brief break from the status quo comes courtesy of the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra, which has been performing in the space now known as Mandel Concert Hall for 90 years.

Closing out the final weekend of Women’s History Month, the longest-running women’s orchestra in the country marked its 90th anniversary with its annual celebration concert. Music director Eric Benjamin led the program on March 30, which leaned traditional with plenty of orchestral standards.

The group’s strengths showed brightest in the peppy music that bookended the program. Shostakovich’s Festive Overture opened the concert on a strong note with even tempos, a healthy group sound, and satisfying bass drum hits. Benjamin’s conducting was attentive, but not micromanaging. [Read more…]

Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes champions Norwegian composers in Cleveland recital (Mar. 27)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Touring musicians have been making some difficult decisions about whether to proceed with their U.S. engagements lately, and Leif Ove Andsnes is no exception.

“It’s with mixed emotions that I arrived in the U.S. yesterday,” the Norwegian pianist wrote in a statement on his social media. “Music cannot solve global problems, but I hope my program can at least inspire some of the emotions we so badly need right now: compassion, empathy, generosity, understanding, and an appreciation of diversity.”

Forging ahead with his recital tour, Andsnes took the stage at Severance Music Center on Thursday, March 27 as part of The Cleveland Orchestra’s Recital Series. The pianist gracefully represented his home country with music by Edvard Grieg and Geirr Tveitt, along with Frédéric Chopin’s 24 Preludes.

[Read more…]

Clarinetist Amer Hasan celebrates Mozart with the Akron Symphony

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by Stephanie Manning

When Amer Hasan introduced himself to the Akron Symphony in 2019, he did so with the opening movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. “ It was the first piece that I played for Maestro Wilkins in my audition, behind the screen,” Hasan recalled in a recent interview. “So the first three minutes of the concerto is not only the first music I associate with auditions, but also with the Akron Symphony.”

Six years on from that fateful performance, which helped earn Hasan the principal clarinet position, he and the orchestra are set to create some new memories with that same Mozart work. Music director Christopher Wilkins will lead Hasan and the Akron Symphony in a performance of the full, three-movement concerto on Saturday, March 29.

The 7:30 pm concert in E.J. Thomas Hall also features Joseph Bologne’s Overture to The Anonymous Lover, Jessie Montgomery’s Five Freedom Songs, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1. Tickets are available online. [Read more…]

International Contemporary Ensemble returns to Oberlin (Mar. 14)

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by Stephanie Manning

The International Contemporary Ensemble hasn’t been back on the Warner Concert Hall stage in a number of years, but seeing them there somehow feels right. Founded at Oberlin Conservatory in 2001, the group has retained strong ties to the school, making their March 14 appearance notable as one of the few homecomings since the ensemble’s founding.

The Friday night concert featured eight artists from ICE’s roster, including four Oberlin alumni, two current faculty members, and twelve Conservatory students. Titled “Composing While Black: Volume I” and curated by the Ensemble’s artistic director George Lewis, the program featured music by people familiar to both the Oberlin community and Northeast Ohio at large. [Read more…]

Martha Redbone Hears Her Musical Call

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by Stephanie Manning

Reposted with the permission of Oberlin Conservatory

“If it’s meant to happen, the music will find you.” That’s how Martha Redbone sees it. And it wasn’t until she was in college studying illustration in the late ’80s, that the music found her for good.

Back then, the advent of the first Mac was rapidly changing the art world. “As an illustrator who loved painting and drawing people, that digital world was not for me,” she said. Feeling torn, she turned to music as a creative outlet, starting as a background vocalist before progressing into a career as a lead singer. Together with her songwriting partner (and later life partner) the pianist Aaron Whitby, she began to write music that had stories to tell.

“ There was a connection and a resonance that I got from singing, and it gave me a sense of peace,” she says. “I’ll always be an artist, I’ll always be an illustrator. But the music is what ended up calling me, and I just listened to that call.”

[Read more…]

Guitarist Marko Topchii cheerfully breaks the rules at CCGS (Mar. 8)

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by Stephanie Manning

Spend a few minutes with Marko Topchii, and you’ll know he’s a performer that likes to bend convention. The guitarist took the stage at the Maltz Performing Arts Center on March 8 wearing a baby blue suit jacket over a graphic tee, before promptly announcing that he was adding another piece to the program. Instead of kicking things off with Frederic Hand’s Undercurrents, his first selection was a brief, reflective work called Ground, written by his mother.

Speaking from the stage with commentary that was both personable and concise, Topchii charmingly contextualized the music on his extensive program. Undercurrents, which he got to shortly after his opening shakeup, was the commissioned work for the Guitar Foundation of America’s 2023 Competition — an event where Topchii came out on top with the grand prize.

Thanks to his win, the Ukrainian guitarist has been touring the U.S. almost nonstop since September, with two months left to go. But at his visit to the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, his relaxed speaking and focused performance belied the inevitable stressors of that schedule. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra delivers powerful performances of Beethoven, Janáček (Mar. 13)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — This week’s Cleveland Orchestra programs were to have featured soprano Asmik Grigorian in Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs. But when Grigorian withdrew last week for personal reasons, the focus changed to works by Beethoven while keeping intact the original theme of darkness into light.

On Thursday, March 13, music director Franz Welser-Möst wasted no time arriving at what would usually be a concert’s main event. The very first notes that rang out in Severance Music Center formed the iconic four-note motif known around the world — the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

Yes, one of the most famous classical music pieces ever written opened the program instead of closing it. It’s an unconventional programming choice — but after all, Beethoven’s Fifth is a piece that needs little introduction. At least not today.

[Read more…]

Poiesis Quartet return to Northeast Ohio for a Cleveland composing celebration

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by Stephanie Manning

The long, rich history of string quartet music leaves today’s ensembles with plenty of classic works to explore. The Poiesis Quartet knows such standard repertoire well — their performances of Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 5 helped earn them their win at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, which skyrocketed the group’s career in 2023.

But you’re more likely to find the Cincinnati-based ensemble playing something new. So when Poiesis was offered the opportunity to perform seven different string quartets by members of the Cleveland Composers Guild, of course they said yes.

That concert on Sunday, March 16  — which will be held in Cleveland State University’s Drinko Hall at 3:00 pm — features both premieres and other contemporary selections from the local composers. [Read more…]

Midori and Özgür Aydin: an introspective evening in Oberlin (Mar. 5)

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by Stephanie Manning

If one word encapsulated Midori’s recital at Oberlin on March 5, it might be “catharsis.” This program wasn’t just a distraction from the big emotions many of us have been grappling with these days. It required confronting tangled feelings first, before arriving with a changed attitude on the other side.

Finney Chapel was the violinist’s first stop on her latest recital tour, together with her longtime collaborator, pianist Özgür Aydin. The Oberlin Artist Recital Series event attracted a large crowd, yet the space still seemed fitting for an intimate, two-person recital. Low lighting shrouded the Chapel’s great organ and the back of the stage in a warm darkness, focusing all attention on the musicians.

The process of catharsis came slightly out of order, but nonetheless effectively. For embracing a thorny emotional tangle head-on, there was Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Violin and Piano, which arrived after intermission. [Read more…]

Akron Symphony: Mahler’s emotional rollercoaster (Mar. 1)

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by Stephanie Manning

“Welcome to Mahler’s 2nd,” read the program leaflet I was handed while entering E.J. Thomas Hall on March 1. “You’re in for an emotional rollercoaster — big drama, quiet reflection, and an ending that will shake the walls (and maybe your soul).”

The Akron Symphony’s latest program certainly delivered on that promise. Most ensembles devote the entire evening to Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony, an almost 90-minute work, and Akron was no different. Conductor Christopher Wilkins led a stirring performance from the extra-large orchestra, together with the Akron Symphony Chorus, the Metropolitan Chorus of Summit Choral Society, soprano Sonya Headlam, and alto Amanda Lynn Bottoms. [Read more…]

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