by Timothy Robson
Cleveland-based Contrapunctus Early Music, a 17-member a cappella ensemble of high voices directed by David Acres, performed a concise concert of music in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Friday, March 2 at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. Despite their name, the ensemble — deployed in a variety of combinations — covered a wide array of works, from Gregorian chant to the world premiere of a newly-commissioned work by British composer Graham Keitch. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
Those who have never heard a concert by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and their sibling organization, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus, have been deprived of a very fine musical experience. Their recent concert at Severance Hall on Sunday, February 25, under their youthful new music director, Vinay Parameswaran, was again proof of the fine training that these young musicians receive from their own teachers as well as from their Cleveland Orchestra coaches. If anything, this concert improved upon past performances. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
The ninth annual edition of Quire Cleveland’s “Carols for Quire IX from the Old and New Worlds” offered a pleasing respite from both the British cathedral and collegiate chapel carol traditions so commonly emulated in the United States, as well as the popular symphonic Christmas concerts. At first glance, the program seemed quite austere: at least in the U.S., names like Lully, Rameau, and DuFay are not normally associated with Christmas music. I attended the first of three performances, on Friday, December 15 at Trinity Cathedral in downtown Cleveland. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
There were no clinking glasses or telltale scents of hot dogs and Tater Tots on Sunday at Ensemble HD’s performance for Music from The Western Reserve at Christ Episcopal Church in Hudson. Let me explain: Ensemble HD was originally formed by several members of The Cleveland Orchestra to perform classical music gigs at Cleveland’s West Side iconic bar The Happy Dog, with its eclectic mix of entertainment. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
American tenor Nicholas Phan led members of Cleveland’s Baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire in a stunning live performance of Phan’s English Baroque lute song album, A Painted Tale, this weekend at several local venues, including St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights on Friday night. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
For reasons unknown, Sharon Isbin, one of the leading classical guitar virtuosos of our time, had never performed in Cleveland until Saturday evening, November 4, when she appeared in a recital for the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society at Plymouth Church of Shaker Heights. During the second half of the evening, she was joined by Cleveland native Colin Davin, a former Isbin student and current faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Baldwin Wallace University. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
American composer Lou Harrison (1917-2003) studied with Arnold Schoenberg and Henry Cowell, but followed his own creative path, strongly influenced by Asian music, especially the gamelan music of Java (now a part of Indonesia). In celebration of Harrison’s 100th anniversary, the Cleveland Museum of Art presented a concert of his music on Friday, October 20 in Gartner Auditorium. The evening featured radiant performances by the MIT-based Gamelan Galak Tika, founded and directed by composer Evan Ziporyn. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
Gian Carlo Menotti’s 1950 cold-war era opera The Consul received a strong performance on July 21 by the Nightingale Opera Theatre at the intimate Barlow Community Center theater in Hudson. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
Severance Hall was packed on Friday, July 14, for the first of this year’s Summers@ Severance concerts. It was the perfect evening for this more casual concert, which included audience members attired in everything from t-shirts and shorts to evening attire, plus food and drinks before and after on the terrace. In the auditorium, however, the proceedings were anything but casual. Franz Welser-Möst conducted a program of Beethoven: the Symphonies Nos. 1 and 5, and the Overture to Egmont. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
György Kurtág, unlike his friend and fellow Hungarian György Ligeti, never softened his composing style. While his early works were more or less tonal, Ligeti’s style turned to modernism in the 1960s before evolving to become considerably more approachable by casual listeners. Kurtág’s severely modernist music is austerely beautiful and darkly dramatic, perhaps more to be admired than loved. [Read more…]