by Stephanie Manning
The Daily Diary is back from its two-week hiatus!
IN THIS EDITION:
•Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music features composers from Hungary, India, Ukraine, and the US
•2022-23 season updates: Minnesota Orchestra music director, Cleveland Orchestra tickets, SalonEra third season
•An insightful interview with Huang Ruo about his new opera M. Butterfly
•Almanac: appreciating French pianist Cécile Chaminade
by Stephanie Manning
Local audiences may remember Stanislav Khristenko from his electrifying performances at the 2013 Cleveland International Piano Competition, where his performance of the Brahms Concerto No. 1 with The Cleveland Orchestra helped him to take home the grand prize. This summer, competition organizer Piano Cleveland has invited him back to perform as part of the inaugural PianoDays @CLE.
Winning the CIPC is not Khristenko’s only connection to Cleveland — the pianist also earned an artist diploma from the Cleveland Institute of Music. “Cleveland is really my home here in the U.S.,” he said in a recent Zoom interview. On Sunday, August 7, he’ll return to his alma mater for his PianoDays program at 2:00 pm in Mixon Hall. Titled “Stanislav and Friends,” the performance will include a number of musicians that he met as a student. Purchase in-person or virtual tickets here. [Read more…]
by Stephanie Manning
Take a look at pianist Aaron Diehl’s upcoming concerts and you’ll see a little bit of everything. There’s “Jazz in July” at New York’s 92nd Street Y, “Bach to Bebop” with his Trio in Irvine, CA, and Gershwin’s Concerto in F with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra — all in the span of a few months. Much of Diehl’s work lies at the intersection of jazz and classical, and so does Mary Lou Williams’ Zodiac Suite, which he’ll be performing this weekend with The Cleveland Orchestra.
It was on the Blossom Music Center stage where the Columbus, Ohio native made his debut with the Orchestra back in 2017. “I remember how sensitive they were to the music and how the sections within the orchestra were so together, and so expressive and nuanced,” he reflected in a 2019 interview with ClevelandClassical.com. “It was like playing with a chamber music group.”
For his third appearance at Blossom, Diehl will be joined by bassist David Wong, drummer Aaron Kimmel, and soprano Mikaela Bennett on Saturday, July 16 at 7:00 pm. Led by conductor Jader Bignamini, the Orchestra will also perform two works by Ottorino Resphigi: Fountains of Rome and Pines of Rome. Tickets are available here.
by Stephanie Manning
Summer 2022 has seen a surge in travel, as those who were kept from family, friends, and favorite places over the past two years try to make up for lost time. The upcoming July 4 weekend should be one of the busiest yet. But for those staying in the Cleveland area, the ENCORE Chamber Music Institute’s Music & Ideas Festival is offering audiences a musical getaway on July 3 at 4:00 pm with “Tales of Travel & Transformation.”
The featured performers, the Verona Quartet, are a group of world travelers themselves. Hailing from four different countries, the musicians — violinists Jonathan Ong and Dorothy Ro, violist Abigail Rojansky, and cellist Jonathan Dormand — have performed as a group across four continents. Over the past two years of their residency at Oberlin Conservatory, the Quartet has appeared in venues all over Northeast Ohio — this weekend, they will add the Gilmour Academy’s Dodero Center to that list.
by Stephanie Manning
It’s unconventional to interview a lighting designer for an upcoming chamber music concert. But then again, a performance of Anna Thorvaldsdottír’s In the Light of Air is unconventional, too.
The four-movement suite for viola, cello, harp, piano, percussion, and electronics has a long history with the International Contemporary Ensemble (IntCE), but a new group of players will take it on for a concert as part of ChamberFest Cleveland on July 1. As lighting designer and current IntCE member Nicholas Houfek explained in a recent conversation, the difficulty with programming the piece lies in the logistics of the installation.
“We’ve had other people reach out, but once they hear what’s needed and required to install it, a lot of them kind of get scared and back away. It’s a lot for a chamber music festival or organization to take on.”
Houfek knows these requirements better than most — he’s been involved with the piece since its inception, working closely with Thorvaldsdottír while she composed it for IntCE in 2014. Describing the piece’s soundscape as “warm” and “natural” but also “otherworldly,” he discussed how sound and light combine to create the finished product.
by Stephanie Manning
In the two years since the Cleveland Institute of Music’s centennial, Margaret Brouwer’s Blue Streak Ensemble has been patiently waiting for the opportunity to celebrate — and they weren’t about to let another chance pass by. After three pandemic-related delays, the concert finally presented on May 22 at CIM’s Mixon Hall was a testament to both the institution and the resilience of the ensemble itself.
Sunday’s program, the first in a pair of performances from the ensemble, featured four contemporary works with instrumentations ranging from one to six players. It also paid homage to the lineage of CIM composition faculty with a work by Donald Erb — the second performance, on Tuesday the 24th, highlighted Marcel Dick and Keith Fitch. (Brouwer herself was the head of the composition department from 1996 to 2008.)
by Stephanie Manning
Many musicians will remember exactly what they were rehearsing in March of 2020, when the music suddenly stopped. For The Cleveland Orchestra, that unlucky piece was Schubert’s Symphony No. 9, which at the time was only heard by a private audience of staff members. More than two years later, the Orchestra finally gave the work the live performance it deserved on May 12 — and the seats at Severance Music Center were plenty full.
Conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, the Orchestra was in their element for the popular symphony, also known as “The Great” — a nickname born not out of a value designation, but to differentiate it from a shorter work of Schubert’s also in C Major. Clocking in at just under an hour in total, the four demanding movements are a test of endurance, which prompted the woodwind section to enlist some assistant players.
by Stephanie Manning
An immigrant mother, struggling with her sense of identity, makes a plea to her new homeland in the hopes that her newborn daughter will have an easier time navigating it. This sentiment, presented in musical form, was especially fitting for a concert on Mother’s Day — not to mention one with a high percentage of mothers in the audience.
That is the narrative of Reena Esmail’s She Will Transform You, which opened the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’s spring concert on May 8. Led by music director Vinay Parameswaran at Severance Music Center, the young musicians were in fine form this past Sunday evening, and their performance delivered plenty of moments of outstanding musicianship.
by Stephanie Manning
An audio recording does not do Fire & Grace & Ash justice. In their 2019 album, Partita Americana, the trio — Edwin Huizinga, violin, William Coulter, guitar, and Ashley Hoyer, mandolin — brought first-rate musicianship to a melting pot of classical, bluegrass, and folk music. It’s a record that’s impressive enough on its own, but it paled in comparison to the trio’s live, in-person concert on April 30 at St. Malachi Church.
The opening few minutes were the perfect introduction to the range of styles ahead, flowing seamlessly through Bach, the classic folk tune “The Wayfaring Stranger,” and an energetic fiddle piece. The three musicians, who moved naturally as a unit, clearly enjoy making music together, and their mood was infectious. Huizinga’s resonant violin sound filled up the space, while Coulter on guitar was a steady, reliable bass voice. In the face of two louder instruments, Hoyer’s mandolin was sometimes more difficult to hear — but her time to shine came during her piece Two Trees, a sentimental tune that brought her crystal-clear tone to the forefront.
by Stephanie Manning
When Moonhee Kim’s violin teacher said he wanted her to learn the Prokofiev Violin Concerto, she was hoping he would say the second one. Of the composer’s two concerti for the instrument, No. 2 is more commonly performed, and it was the one Kim was most familiar with. But Concerto No. 1 was what he had in mind — and as it turns out, that was the perfect choice.
On Sunday, May 8 at Severance Music Center, Kim will perform Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra under the direction of Vinay Parameswaran. The 7:00 pm program will also feature Reena Esmail’s She Will Transform You, Mendelssohn’s Verleih uns Frieden, and Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. Tickets are available online.
“I can’t imagine doing a different concerto for this performance, because it’s become one of my favorite pieces that I’ve ever played,” Kim said in a recent phone interview. “The more I talk about No. 1, the more I hear things like, ‘Oh, I heard that concerto for the first time the other day, and I fell in love with it immediately.’ Even though Prokofiev 2 is so much more accessible, I think there’s this appeal to the first one that really draws people in.”