Following the junior semifinal rounds at the Cleveland Institute of Music on Tuesday, June 5, the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists announced the three pianists who will advance to the final round with the Canton Symphony on Friday evening. They are, from left to right, Eva Gevorgyan, 13 (Russia), Yunchan Lim, 13 (South Korea), and Hao Wei Lin, 13 (Taiwan). The senior semifinal rounds will be held in Mixon Hall on Wednesday, June 6 at 1:00 and 7:00 pm, with the finalists to be named after the evening session. More information and live stream here.
Pre•Views
Apollo’s Fire: “Tarantella!” — fifteen minutes with Brian Kay
by Daniel Hathaway
Oudist, lutenist, and guitarist Brian Kay has teamed up with vocalist Amanda Powell and artistic director and keyboardist Jeannette Sorrell to curate Apollo’s Fire’s Countryside Concerts show, “Tarantella! Rhythms of the Old Mediterranean.” The program will receive five performances in Hunting Valley, Avon Lake, Chardon, and Bath from June 8-12.
“Last year’s ‘Mediterranean Roots’ was so successful that Jeannette, Amanda, and I discussed how to rearrange it with a few additions of musicians and repertory to make it fresh,” Kay said in a telephone conversation. He added that it’s much easier to collaborate now that he and his wife have moved to Cleveland from Baltimore. “Now I can bring my guitar to Amanda’s house, where she’ll sit at the piano and we’ll play everything from Stevie Wonder to The Beatles to Medieval and Appalachian music and come up with ideas. Now Jeannette can also come by and participate.” [Read more…]
Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival: Duo Melis, partners onstage and off
by Mike Telin
Beginning on Friday, June 8 and continuing through Sunday, June 10 at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the 2018 edition of the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival will feature thirteen artists and ensembles, five concerts, nine master classes, and three lectures.
“Cleveland is a special place for us,” Susana Prieto said by telephone from her home in Greece. “Apart from the great hall we have a special relationship with Armin Kelly. He presented us as a duo for the first time in the States. He believed in us and we always like to come back to the Festival.”
On Saturday, June 9 at 8:00 pm in Mixon Hall, Susana Prieto will join her Duo Melis partner, Alexis Muzurakis, in a concert that will include works by Granados, Kapustin, Lhoyer, Piazzolla, Rodrigo, and Scarlatti. The Duo will also present a master class on Sunday, June 10 at 11:30 am in CIM Studio 217. That event is free and open to the public. Click here to view the Festival’s full schedule. Tickets are available online. [Read more…]
The McGaffin Carillon at 50: a chat with carillonneur George Leggiero
by Daniel Hathaway
As a high school student, George Leggiero enjoyed collecting chiming clocks. When he arrived as a freshman at Case Western Reserve University, he couldn’t help but notice the mammoth chiming timepiece in the tower of the Church of the Covenant — especially when he moved next door into Mather House for his junior and senior years. “My room overlooked the tower, so you either got to love the bells or you moved,” he said in a telephone conversation.
Leggiero obviously got to love them — in October, he’ll celebrate his 45th anniversary as resident carillonneur for the McGaffin Memorial Carillon, a job that came with a learning curve. “I’d had two semesters of piano lessons when the church asked me if I was interested in the job. I worked by myself for a month, I auditioned, they hired me, and I’ve been there ever since.”
Time out for a brief comparison of church bells. [Read more…]
ENCORE Chamber Music announces 2018 season
by Alice Koeninger
This Friday, ENCORE Chamber Music begins its 2018 summer season, titled “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” ENCORE will present concerts every Friday and Sunday from June 8 to July 15.
Performances will take place in the Tudor House at the Gilmour Academy through July 6, after which they move to Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Tickets can be purchased here.
The season starts with the Miró Quartet on Friday evening, June 8 at 7:00 pm. This Austin-based group, renowned for its thoughtful programming and musical interpretation, will play Haydn’s Quartet in E-flat, Op. 71, No. 3, Kevin Puts’ Credo, and Beethoven’s Quartet in a, Op. 132. [Read more…]
Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival: a conversation with Antonis Hatzinikolaou
by Mike Telin
For the past seventeen years, the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival has provided a stage for many guitarists to make their United States debuts. One of those artists is Antonis Hatzinikolaou.
“This is my second time at the Festival,” he said by telephone from his home in Greece. “It’s one of the best. It’s not only high-quality in terms of music — the organization is amazing and all the people are very nice. There’s so much happening: concerts, master classes, and demonstrations. And there are instruments to try as well.” Click here to view the full Festival schedule.
On Sunday, June 10 at 2:30 pm in CIM’s Mixon Hall, CICGF will present Antonis Hatzinikolaou in a solo program of works by Britten, Paganini, Pujol, Torroba, and Weiss. Tickets are available online. [Read more…]
AHA! Festival concert to feature ChamberFest Cleveland piano trio
by Hannah Schoepe
Whisking the listener away on a diverse journey of sounds, the AHA! Festival will present a piano trio from a fellow local summer series, ChamberFest Cleveland. Pianist Roman Rabinovich, cellist Oliver Herbert, and violinist David Bowlin will come together to play gems of the chamber music repertoire by Brahms, Kodály, and Janáček on Friday, June 8 at 2:00 pm in Drinko Hall at Cleveland State University.
Friday’s program will feature Brahms’ effervescent Piano Trio No. 1 in B, completed in 1854 and revised throughout the composer’s life. One of the most popular trios of all time, it reflects both the vivaciousness of Brahms’ youth and the emotional depth of his maturity. We recently spoke with David Bowlin, who admitted that the work is his favorite on the program. “I love the whole B-major trio,” he said. “Everyone loves the B-major trio!”
The concert also includes a modern twist: the Kodály Duo for Violin and Cello, and Janáček’s Pohádka (“Fairytale”) for piano and cello.
CIPC to present duo pianists Ran Dank and Soyeon Lee
by Mike Telin
Life has been good for Ran Dank and Soyeon Kate Lee since they won medals at the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 2007 and 2003, respectively. Since those wins, both pianists have enjoyed successful careers as solo artists, as well as holding positions as Assistant Professors of Piano at the Cincinnati College- Conservatory of Music.
This week Dank and Lee will showcase their skills as duo pianists when they return to Cleveland for a performance on Thursday, June 7 at 8:00 in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The concert is presented as part of the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists, which began last week and runs through Saturday, June 9.
The Duo’s program will include works by Mozart, Scriabin, Janáček, and Liszt as well as a four-hands version of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. “It’s a special piece for us because we played it at our wedding concert in New York City,” Lee said during a joint telephone call with Dank. “A wedding is sort of a rite,” he added with a laugh. “But you can’t quite call the piece an arrangement because parts of it were originally conceived for four hands. So in some ways, the orchestrated version is the arrangement in the same way Ravel would orchestrate his piano works.”
Vieaux and Labro to open the 2018 Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival
by Mike Telin
For the past seventeen years, the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival has brought some of the world’s finest classical guitarists, lutenists, lecturers, composers, teachers, and guitar makers to the Cleveland Institute of Music for three days of concerts, masterclasses, lectures, and demonstrations.
“It’s got to be one of the very best festivals in the world for our instrument,” guitarist Jason Vieaux said during a telephone interview. Vieaux, who heads the guitar department at CIM, credits CICGF founder and artistic director Armin Kelly for the Festival’s success. “For Armin it’s all about quality. Year in and year out, the players that he brings in are incredible, and the Festival is a tremendous gift to the City of Cleveland.”
Beginning on Friday, June 8 and continuing through Sunday, June 10, the 2018 edition of CICGF will feature thirteen artists and ensembles, five concerts, nine master classes, and three lectures. Click here to view the full schedule. Tickets are available online.
On Friday, June 8 at 7:30 pm in Mixon Hall, the Grammy-winning Vieaux will team up with his duo partner, accordionist Julien Labro, for this year’s opening concert. [Read more…]
Tigue to return to Ohio as they tour Strange Paradise
by Jarrett Hoffman
Around a decade ago, three Ohio-born musicians met through their studies in the percussion program at Ohio State University, and they just clicked.
After heading to the Eastman School of Music for their masters’ degrees, Matt Evans, Amy Garapic, and Carson Moody found themselves drawn six hours southeast — past Syracuse, Scranton, and Newark, through the Holland Tunnel, and over the Manhattan Bridge.
There, in Brooklyn, they set up a home base for their genre-fluid trio Tigue, whose influences include minimalism and indie rock. Now the group is hitting the road for a two-week tour — including a performance at the Bop Stop on Sunday, June 3 at 7:00 pm — to play music from their recent sophomore album, Strange Paradise. (Tickets are available online.)
Built around Evans’ synthesizer, Garapic’s vibraphone, and Moody’s drum set, the album explores long arcs and slow gradations of change in its 3 tracks over 41 minutes. As a comparison, Tigue’s first album, Peaks, comprised 8 tracks over 34 minutes. [Read more…]