Diary Archives - Page 158 of 158 - Cleveland Classical

On Monday evening, January 26 at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, the Rocky River Chamber Music Society offered listeners a kind of gentle shock: a stage transformed into what looked like a percussionist’s greenhouse — a whole garden of instruments, some recognizable, many not, brightly colored and often hard to name.

Africa → West Percussion Trio (Jamie Ryan, Ryan Korb, and Josh Ryan) made an evening out of that abundance, blending West African and Afro-Caribbean traditions with their Western classical and jazz training. The playing was expert, but the trio’s real gift was making the unfamiliar feel accessible — and joyful. [Read on…]

Akron Symphony looks forward to 2026 with composers new and old (Jan. 17)

by Stephanie Manning

The musical journey of a concert can’t always be summed up by its title. The Akron Symphony’s January 17 performance certainly delivered on its promise of “Beethoven’s Seventh” with a dignified reading of that famous work. But the headline did not hint at the more intriguing pieces on offer — nor the idea that this program aimed to spark enthusiasm about the year ahead.

“Hope and optimism” were the words that conductor Christopher Wilkins used to describe the musical choices to the audience in E.J. Thomas Hall on Saturday.

This idea of looking toward the future appeared right away with a piece by Sarah Hegenderfer, a composition student at The University of Akron. Her lovely little gem of a piece, Clearing of Snow, paints a winter scene at sunset in lush textures.

[Read on…]

Cleveland Jazz Orchestra & Musical Theater Project at the Maltz (Jan. 24)

By Kevin McLaughlin

On Saturday at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra and The Musical Theater Project offered a timely reminder: Hoagy Carmichael wasn’t just the composer of “Stardust.” He was one of America’s great musical storytellers — a songwriter with a midwestern plainness that could turn suddenly tender, funny, or wise in the space of a single line.

Star Dust: The Songs of Hoagy Carmichael, part of the two organizations’ tenth season of collaboration, folded biography and performance into a single leisurely program. The format has become a signature of these shows: songs set in context by narration, supported by projected slides and film excerpts. Here those visuals — Carmichael portraits, footage of Carmichael in motion, stills from To Have and Have Not (1944) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) — were discreet, and perhaps too few. But they reinforced the point that this music came from a particular life, and a full one.

[Read on…]

See all reviews

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us