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BlueWater to feature Richard King in “All Hail the Horn” on Sept. 16

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Friendships: each one is different, based around everything from a mutual career to telling weird jokes. Occasionally both of those come into play, as with hornist Joseph Leutgeb and one pretty famous composer. “Wolfgang Amadé Mozart takes pity on Leutgeb, ass, ox, and simpleton, at Vienna, 27 March 1783,” Mozart wrote on the autograph of the Concerto No. 2 in E-flat, K. 417, one of several works he wrote for the hornist.

Whatever the nature of that bond, hornists around the world are grateful for it, including Cleveland Orchestra fourth hornist Richard King. “Mozart’s my favorite composer, and that we horn players happen to have multiple works by him is just wonderful — and lucky,” King said during a recent phone call. “If Mozart’s friend had played the trumpet, then we might not have anything.”

King will take on Mozart’s Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 during the aptly titled “All Hail the Horn,” BlueWater Chamber Orchestra’s first concert of its ninth season. Conductor Daniel Meyer will lead the performance at the Breen Center in Ohio City on Sunday, September 16 at 3:00 pm. The program will also include Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks chamber concerto and Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo, featuring mezzo-soprano Corrie Stallings. “I’ve been in the audience before and I’m a big fan of this group, so it’s great to have this opportunity,” King said.

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Maltz Center at Case announces new Silver Hall Concert Series

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by Hannah Schoepe

The Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center at the Temple Tifereth-Israel on the campus of Case Western Reserve University will present a new Silver Hall Concert Series. The performances begin this weekend with the annual Showcase Concert presented by the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society on September 15, and continue with the Cleveland Chamber Choir on September 23. The series will comprise nineteen free concerts featuring professional and semi-professional ensembles from greater Cleveland in the 1,200-seat Silver Hall Auditorium (a full concert calendar is below).

The idea of shimmering silver is certainly a fitting concept to describe the Series, presented in partnership with CWRU. Renovated in 2015, Silver Hall Auditorium now includes state-of-the art recording and live-streaming capability. This Series marks the Maltz Center’s new venture into presenting.

Randall Barnes, executive director of the Maltz Center, said the Series tackles several key components that help to define the niche of the Center. “First, the celebration of the musical artistry of our students through the CWRU Music Department ensembles; second, the professional and semi-professional talent of the greater Cleveland area ensembles showcased here; and finally, the intersection of technology and heritage by delivering one-of-a-kind performances both in-person and live-streamed from Silver Hall, the historical showpiece of the Maltz Performing Arts Center.”

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The Cleveland Museum of Art Composers Cohort: “Find your inspiration here”

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by Mike Telin
Originally published on the Website of
The Collective Arts Network | Cleveland

Since its inception in 2008, the Cleveland Foundation’s Creative Fusion program has brought more than eighty international artists to Cleveland for residencies. Now, and for the first time in its history, the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) will make a serious commitment to the commissioning of new music in partnership with the Cleveland Foundation.

Over the next two years, the latest edition of the Creative Fusion program will result in the creation of six new works by composers from across the globe under the auspices of the museum’s Performing Arts Series. The composers—Luciano Chessa, Cenk Ergün, Aya Nishina, Sophie Nzayisenga, Henry Threadgill and Aleksandra Vrebalov—will travel to Cleveland, gain inspiration by immersing themselves in the museum’s collection and the city, and create compositions, three of which will be premiered in Cleveland in the spring of 2019 and three during the 2019–2020 concert season.

The scope and nature of the works in this series will be developed during the composers’ visits to the museum and the city. Discussions with curators and conversations with potential collaborators from across Cleveland’s creative community will steer the process, in close coordination with the museum’s performing arts staff. After this research phase, the composers will create their work on individually crafted timelines. Read the article on the CAN Journal

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Oberlin Conservatory to begin year with World War I Festival Sept. 8 & 9

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by Daniel Hathaway

“I’ve always loved music from the early 20th century, particularly during World War I, ” Oberlin violin professor Sibbi Bernhardsson said in a recent telephone conversation. “And I’m fascinated by the decade after the war, which is more varied than any ten-year period in the 19th century. You have the Second Viennese School, the Russian composers, things that are starting up in America, Modernism, and reactions to this and that. It’s a very rich time.”

Bernhardsson, who joined the Conservatory faculty last year after 17 seasons touring with the Pacifica Quartet, was seized by the idea of marking the 100th Anniversary of the cessation of hostilities, using Oberlin’s deep musical and scholarly resources to explore the music surrounding the Great War. “Looking at the number of great chamber pieces that were written during the era, not only are they all very different, some are clearly about the war while other composers were writing as though there was no war going on at all. This became a fascinating thing to me,” he said.

The violinist broached the idea of a festival with Oberlin musicology professor Charles McGuire early last spring only to discover that McGuire, who is in charge of Oberlin’s Murphy Colloquium, had already been talking with his colleagues about mounting a panel discussion about World War I music. “That seemed fortuitous,” McGuire said in a separate telephone conversation. “It’s always better to plan a scholarly panel if it’s surrounded by great music, and Sibbi’s very enthusiastic — a whirlwind when he sinks his teeth into something.” [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera Costume Retrospective showcases four decades of design

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by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

The importance of costumes in theater or opera is easy to determine. Just think of how often a brief glimpse of a costume can not only tell you when the action is taking place, but frequently where as well. Think of The Mikado, for instance, or more recently, Brigadoon or My Fair Lady. But those costumes don’t just appear like magic.

Oh, no. There are numerous meetings with the other technical staff of the production in addition to Costume Design. Among these are Set and sometimes Prop Design, Lighting Design, more rarely Sound Design, plus the Stage Director, Choreographer, Stage Manager and Conductor. All of these people have an interest in how the production will both look and sound to an audience. Depending on the size of the show, these meetings may begin as much as a year in advance of opening night.

Obviously, I Do! I Do! (the famous two-person, one-set musical of 1966) isn’t nearly as demanding or complex as Phantom of the Opera, but either of them could easily have been ruined by a lack of proper attention to the necessities. For the former, that meant two nightgowns and a huge bed. For the latter, it seemed like half the population of Paris was onstage at times. [Read more…]

Thoughts on Star Wars as TCO closes its Blossom season

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Before the action figures, t-shirts, and lunch boxes — before even a single sequel was on anyone’s mind — 20th Century Fox’s 1977 Star Wars was a movie that came in over budget, with low expectations. The studio moved up the release date so it wouldn’t have to compete with that summer’s Smokey and the Bandit. In terms of merchandise, toy company Kenner Products was caught so flat-footed by the success of Star Wars that Christmas shoppers had to settle for a box with a voucher: mail it in to get your toys next year, kids.

Those essentially empty boxes now go for $13K on eBay. A more wallet-friendly option for your Star Wars fix: $26 tickets to see the original film at Blossom this weekend, with John Williams’ score played live by The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of assistant conductor Vinay Parameswaran. Screenings of the film, now known as Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, will take place from Friday through Sunday, August 31 to September 2, the festival’s closing night, all at 8:30 pm. After the red and green blaster rays, stay for more fireworks, weather permitting.

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Adrien Perruchon to lead TCO in Carmina Burana at Blossom

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Depending on your point of view, the three Star Wars concerts at the tail end of August and into September either mark a thrilling end of The Cleveland Orchestra’s Blossom season, or serve as fun, galactic encores to the earthly drama unfolding this weekend.

On Saturday, August 25 at 8:00 pm, French conductor Adrien Perruchon will round up all the bodies at his disposal — the Blossom Festival Chorus, Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Chorus, soprano Audrey Luna, tenor Matthew Plenk, baritone Elliot Madore, and of course The Cleveland Orchestra itself. They’ll all be needed for Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.

A number of firsts are in store for that performance: Perruchon and Luna will make their debuts with the Orchestra, while Plenk and Madore will take the stage at Blossom for the first time. Preceding the Orff will be Copland’s Statements — a work which Perruchon finds fascinating in its own right, as he told me in a recent telephone conversation from Paris.

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Opera tailgating at Dunham Tavern Museum

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by Mike Telin

Whether you’re an opera aficionado, a casual listener, or opera-curious, Cleveland Opera Theater’s Free Summer Concert Series is the way to experience all that the art form has to offer. On Sunday, August 26, gather your friends and family, pack up your blankets and lawn chairs, and head to Cleveland’s MidTown area for an evening of opera favorites at the Dunham Tavern Museum.

The grounds will open at 5:00 pm, and while picnics are welcome, Scott’s Fire and Ice Food Truck will be on hand with wood-fired pizzas and gelato available for purchase. Cleveland Opera Theater will be selling wine, the proceeds of which will benefit the free summer concerts. “It’s opera tailgating at its best,” Scott Skiba, the company’s executive artistic director (no relation to the food truck), said during a recent telephone conversation. “These concerts provide a family-friendly gateway to discover and experience opera. We see that people who have come will often return for a main stage production or our Opera UpClose series.”

At 6:30 pm you can settle in for a program of arias and duets performed by soprano Marian Vogel, tenor Benjamin Werley, baritone Young Kwang Yoo, and pianist Tatiana Loisha. [Read more…]

Summers@Severance: 10 minutes with conductor Jonathan Cohen

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Québec’s chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy got its name from France’s royal court orchestra of yore. But the group’s new leader, Jonathan Cohen, is not a Gallic king — neither in reality nor in ego.

“I come from a chamber music perspective and a chamber music world,” the Manchester-born conductor said during a recent telephone conversation from rainy London. For him, music-making should be a shared endeavor with shared responsibility. “It’s not like I’m ordering people to play and they just interpret it. We do that together, and I guide the process — that’s how I like to work.”

Cohen and pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout will make their Cleveland Orchestra debuts on Friday, August 24 at 7:00 pm in the last of the season’s Summers@Severance outings — “@” Severance Hall, with air conditioning, and without crickets. The program of Handel, Haydn, and Mozart represents Cohen’s specialty: music before late Beethoven. “That kind of music is my great passion and love. And in my opinion, most of it is chamber music.”

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Calling up a polymath: pianist, composer, writer, and painter Stephen Hough

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by Jarrett Hoffman

When you’re dialing the number of one of twenty living polymaths (according to The Economist), it’s easy to feel a little uneasy. As it turns out, Stephen Hough is funny, kind, and generous — in addition to having a few brain cells up there.

Our conversation eventually made its way to Mendelssohn’s First Piano Concerto, which he’ll perform at Blossom with The Cleveland Orchestra and conductor James Gaffigan on Saturday, August 18 at 8:00 pm. But first, the pianist, composer, writer, and painter tackled some complicated and personal questions about his varied artistic self.

Hough’s first novel, The Final Retreat, was published in February (read his article about it in The Tablet here). His latest CD, a collection of miniatures titled Dream Album, includes his original music and was released in June.

[Read more…]

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