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No Exit & Zeitgeist delve into “The Unconscious”

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by Mike Telin

No Exit continues their Year of Surreality this week with “The Unconscious.” The ensemble will be joined by longtime collaborators Zeitgeist for a program featuring four world premiere films — The Birdhouse, conceived and written by Timothy Beyer and filmed by James Praznik, breathing room by Luke Haaksmsa, In Fourteen Steps by James Praznik, and Between Here and There, a collaboration between Zeitgeist and composer and multimedia artist Philip Blackburn. The free, 7:00 pm performances will be held on Thursday, November 30 at Cleveland State University’s Drinko Recital Hall, Friday, December 1 at Waterloo Arts, and Saturday, December 2 at SPACES.

As part of “The Unconscious,” Cleveland-based artists Leila Khoury and Kristen Newell have created Revelations of the Unconscious Mind (a surrealist dreamscape), which will serve as an exhibit unto itself as well as a performance space. The exhibit is on display at SPACES through December 15.

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Jeremy Denk brings a celebration of women composers to Oberlin Artist Recital Series

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by Mike Telin

Like many, Jeremy Denk’s time as an undergraduate at Oberlin was filled with emotion. “When I arrived I had so much growing up to do,” the celebrated pianist recalled. “So every place in Oberlin is kind of covered with those memories — emotional memories, discoveries, and stress, of course. I was trying to do a double degree — trying to be a pianist and a chemist, and in some ways I really wanted to be an English major. I wanted to be a lot of different things.”

As part of the Oberlin Artist Recital Series, Jeremy Denk will perform a program that celebrates women composers from the 19th to 21st centuries along with works by Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms on Thursday, November 30 at 7:30 pm in Finney Chapel. Tickets are available online.

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CelloBello Celebrates the Cleveland Quartet: a conversation with Paul Katz

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by Mike Telin

Prior to embarking on a tour of the Soviet Union in 1988, the Cleveland Quartet — Donald Weilerstein and Peter Salaff (violins), James Dunham (viola), and Paul Katz (cello), received word from Goskino USSR, the State Committee on Cinematography, that they wanted to make documentary about the tour. “They wanted it to be an English-language film made for American television.” Paul Katz recalled during a Zoom conversation.

But with the abolishing of Goskino in November of 1991 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December of that year, the film, although in its final edits, was never released. “I don’t know exactly how it resurfaced, but I noticed there was a video of Barber’s Adagio with the Cleveland Quartet on YouTube. It is footage from the film, so I thought that it had to live somewhere.”

On November 29 at 7:30 pm at Reinberger Chamber Hall in Severance Music Center, Notes From Behind the Iron Curtain: Cleveland Quartet’s 1988 Soviet Tour will finally receive its premiere. Following the screening, attendees will have the unique opportunity to engage in a Q&A session with Cleveland Quartet members.

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Pietari Inkinen to make Cleveland Orchestra debut

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by Mike Telin

“I am thrilled to be making my debut with this wonderful orchestra,” Pietari Inkinen said. “The Cleveland Orchestra is one of the greatest in the world and for any conductor it is an honor to be invited to conduct in Cleveland.”

On Friday, November 24 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, the Finnish conductor will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Dvořák’s Othello Overture and Symphony No. 8, as well as Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with Augustin Hadelich as soloist. The program will be repeated on Saturday at 8:00 and Sunday at 3:00. Tickets are available online.

Born in Kouvola, Finland, Inkinen began studying the violin and piano at the age of  four. He attended the Sibelius Academy, where he graduated with diplomas in violin in 2003 and conducting in 2005, and also studied violin at the Hochschule für Musik Köln. As a violinist, he has appeared as soloist with many orchestras including the Finnish Radio Symphony and Helsinki Philharmonic, and as a chamber musician he has appeared with the Inkinen Trio at the Wigmore Hall and St. John’s Smith Square.

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Obituary: Mary Ann Griebling, 87

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Mary Ann (Rimmel) Griebling, 87, of Akron, Ohio passed away peacefully on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Mendell Eugene Rimmel and Marthena W. (née Diver) Rimmel, on April 29, 1936. She is survived by daughters Karen Griebling (Robin Brown) and Margi Griebling-Haigh (Scott Haigh), and granddaughter Gabrielle Haigh (Mark Nelson). She was a curious, clever, and creative woman who was deeply ambitious on behalf of her family.

As the daughter of a Methodist circuit minister who would later become a professor of Calculus at Kent State University, Mary Ann moved many times throughout Northeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania during her childhood. Her fondest memories from this time were of riding her tricycle in the attic of a church rectory in Greentree, Pennsylvania. She inherited her gift for music from her much adored paternal grandfather, Alfred Rimmel, who had worked as a child coal miner, but loved music, had absolute pitch, and reportedly built his own violin. Read the complete obituary here.

Apollo’s Fire presents Fire and Joy: Nicole Divall talks about the ‘Viola of Love’

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by Mike Telin

“The first time I played the viola d’amore it was a bit of a rush job,” Apollo’s Fire principal viola Nicole Divall recalled. “It was for the St. John Passion and I borrowed an instrument and just fell in love with it. Its sound was just so sweet and beautiful I couldn’t stop practicing.”

On Thursday, November 16 at 7:30 pm at First United Methodist Church in Akron, Divall will be the featured soloist in Vivaldi’s Concerto in d for viola d’amore and orchestra.

Directed by Jeannette Sorrell, the program also includes Bach’s Oboe Concerto in F with Debra Nagy as soloist, Vivaldi’s Concerto in d for Two Violins & Cello, and three Bach Sinfonias as well as Brandenburg Concerto No. 4

The program will be repeated on Friday at 7:30 at Lakewood United Methodist, on Saturday at 8:00 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, and Sunday at 4:00 at University Circle United Methodist Church. Violinist Andrew Fouts will give a pre-concert talk one hour before each performance. Tickets are available online.

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Violinist Jinjoo Cho: Barber with BlueWater & writing a book

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Following up on her Tchaikovsky Concerto performance four years ago, violinist Jinjoo Cho will make a return appearance with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra on Friday, November 17 at 7:30 pm at Church of the Covenant.

This time, the first prize winner of the 2014 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis will focus on the Concerto of Samuel Barber — part of an all-American program led by Daniel Meyer that will also include Cindy McTee’s Adagio for String Orchestra and Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring: Suite for Full Orchestra. Pay-what-you-wish tickets are available here. [Read more…]

CIM Opera Theater explores a Baroque fantasy world of love and magic with student production of Handel’s Alcina

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by Mike Telin
This article was originally published in the Plain Dealer/Cleveland.com

“Fantasy and opera go hand-in-hand really well,” CIM Opera Theater interim director JJ Hudson said during a telephone call. And when it comes to fantasy, the Cleveland Institute of Music’s upcoming production of George Frederick Handel’s Alcina is all about fantasy. “We’re not downplaying the various reversals of fortune via magic — that’s part of the fun, and we want this show to be fun,” says Hudson.

Still, Hudson does think the opera’s plot is a little bizarre. The story takes place on a magical island belonging to the sorceress Alcina, who seduces every man who comes along, only to turn them into rocks or wild animals once she’s grown tired of their company.

Her most recent victim is the knight Ruggiero, which causes his fiancée Bradamante and her guardian Melisso to follow him to the island. Disguised as a man named Ricciardo, she attempts to free Ruggiero with the help of a magic ring. The plan goes astray when Alcina’s sister Morgana becomes smitten with Ricciardo and dumps her lover Oronte. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra presents Claude Vivier’s Lonely Child: a conversation with Aphrodite Patoulidou

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by Mike Telin

Canadian composer Claude Vivier was born in 1948 in Montreal. That same day he was placed in an orphanage by his mother where he would live until age two and a half, when he was adopted by the Vivier family. The composer spent his entire life in hopes of finding his birth parents — but to no avail. His ongoing search for his identity inspired many of his compositions including his 1980 work for soprano and orchestra, Lonely Child.

On Thursday, November 9 at 7:30 pm, soprano Aphrodite Patoulidou will sing Vivier’s haunting work with The Cleveland Orchestra. The Severance Music Center program, under the direction of Barbara Hannigan, also includes Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 44 (“Trauersinfonie”) and Richard Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration. The program will be repeated on Friday at 11:00 (no Vivier) and Saturday at 8:00. Tickets are available online.

Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, Aphrodite Patoulidou exemplifies the 21st-century creative. Now based in Berlin, the soprano is also a songwriter, photographer, painter, and poet. She was also the lead singer with the heavy metal band Igorrr.

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CIM New Music Ensemble: Cerrone the guest, Saariaho the dedicatee

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by Jarrett Hoffman

There are two main elements to the CIM New Music Ensemble’s program on Sunday, November 12 at 4:00 pm in Mixon Hall.

First there is the guest composer: Christopher Cerrone, who in the last decade has been both a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the winner of the Rome Prize.

Second is the program’s dedicatee: Kaija Saariaho, who was considered one of the greatest living composers until her passing in June from brain cancer.

I reached the Ensemble’s director, Keith Fitch (pictured), to learn about how that idea came together, and how Cerrone and Saariaho mesh.

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