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CIPC’s second Young Artist Competition to run from May 30 through June 9

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by Daniel Hathaway

CIPC-Young-ArtistsTwenty-two young pianists from eleven countries will flock to the Cleveland Institute of Music next week to compete in both junior and senior divisions of the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists. (Meet the contestants here.)

The competition — verging on a festival with the inclusion of several extra events — will be set in motion on Wednesday evening, May 30 with a 7:30 pm opening ceremony in Kulas Hall featuring Canadian pianist Leonid Nediak. Only 12 when he took home second prize in CIPC’s junior division in 2015, Nediak will play solo works before joining Liza Grossman and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto. WCLV’s Robert Conrad will introduce all of the contestants from the stage, and a reception will follow.

Competition rounds begin on Thursday afternoon, May 31 in Kulas Hall and continue daily through the semifinal rounds on June 6, when three pianists in each of the junior (ages 12-14) and senior divisions (ages 15-17) will advance to the final round. That event, on Friday, June 8 at 7:30 pm at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, will feature concerto performances with Gerhardt Zimmermann and the Canton Symphony Orchestra. [Read more…]

Re:Sound Festival of New Music kicks off inaugural season on June 7

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by Mike Telin

ReSoundlogo(color)A year and a half ago, saxophonist Noa Even and cellist Sophie Benn got together to discuss ways to promote new music in Cleveland. They soon brought drummer Stephen Klunk and Bop Stop manager Gabe Pollack into the conversation, and the idea of starting a new music festival in the city was born. Beginning on June 7 and running through June 10, the inaugural Re:Sound Festival of new music will feature twenty-seven musical acts across seven concerts at five venues.

“An aspect of the festival we like to emphasize is just how new the music is,” Noa Even said during a telephone conversation. “All of it is from 2000 or later, so it’s truly a showcase of what people are creating today, improvised and composed. ‘New music’ encompasses so many styles and influences, and hopefully the Festival will capture that diversity.”  

The performers were chosen from a pool of over 100 applicants who responded to the organizing committee’s call for proposals. Those included soloists and existing chamber music ensembles ranging from duos to sextets, as well as composer/performers and experimental artists.

[Read more…]

Sultans of String to return to Nighttown: a three-way call with the violinist and guitarist

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by Jarrett Hoffman

sultans of stringSomeday, somewhere, a genre will be coined that sums up the sound of the Sultans of String. The Toronto-based group frequently blends Spanish Flamenco, Arabic folk music, Cuban rhythms, and jazz. In the meantime, as bandleader and violinist Chris McKhool told us in a 2013 interview, “We just make the music we like to make.”

Three-time Juno Award nominees, the Sultans’ lineup ranges from two to five members, sometimes topped off with guest artists. But at their core is the pairing of violin and guitar — McKhool and Kevin Laliberté, founders of the ensemble. They’ll bring the duo form of Sultans of String to Nighttown on Wednesday, May 30 at 7:00 pm. The concert celebrates the group’s tenth anniversary, and will raise funds for displaced families in Syria and Lebanon through the Outreach Foundation.

McKhool picked up the phone in Burlington, Ontario for our recent conversation, then worked some modern magic — a three-way call — to bring in Laliberté from his kitchen in Toronto. They began by looking back on the beginning of their collaboration.

[Read more…]

Quire Cleveland bids adieu to its founders with free retrospective concert at St. John’s

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by Daniel Hathaway

Quire2017BethSegalThe professional singers of Quire Cleveland will end their 10th anniversary season this Saturday evening May 26 at 7:30 pm, with a free concert at St. John’s Cathedral featuring favorite pieces from the ensemble’s repertoire. The event will also mark the retirement of Quire’s founders, Ross W. Duffin and Beverly Simmons, who plan to take up residence both in California and Washington D.C. to be close to their children and grandchildren.

Duffin and Simmons have been catalysts for early music in Cleveland since Duffin’s arrival at Case Western Reserve University in 1978. Among other activities, they produced the Chapel, Court and Countryside concert series at CWRU, and Duffin hosted the National Public Radio program Micrologos: Exploring the World of Early Music. Under his tutelage, a constant stream of early music specialists has emerged from Case over the decades, and Duffin was named Distinguished University Professor last year.

Crowning their achievements, on May 23, Early Music America named Duffin and Simmons as the recipients of the 2018 Howard Mayer Brown Award for lifetime achievement in the field of early music. [Read more…]

Contemporary Youth Orchestra: a conversation with Kenny Loggins

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by Mike Telin

LogginsA highlight of each Contemporary Youth Orchestra season is the annual Rock the Orchestra concert. On Monday, May 21 at 7:00 pm in Severance Hall, Liza Grossman and her 115-piece Orchestra and 50-voice choir will join forces with the legendary singer, songwriter, and guitarist Kenny Loggins. Tickets are available online.

During a career that has lasted over four decades, Loggins has pretty much done it all. He began writing songs while still in school in San Gabriel, California and  formed his first band, Second Helping, in 1968. Two years later he was introduced to Jim Messina, which led to the birth of the “accidental duo,” who released their first album, Sittin’ In in 1971. Loggins first solo album, Celebrate Me Home in 1977 includes the song “I Believe In Love,” sung by Barbra Streisand in the film, A Star Is Born. His second album, Nightwatch (1978), features “What A Fool Believes,” a song he co-wrote with Michael McDonald. The two would also co-write the hit song “This Is It”. His albums Return to Pooh Corner and More Songs from Pooh Corner received Grammy nominations for Best Musical Album for Children.

Loggins’ many film contributions include “I’m Alright,” the theme from Caddyshack, and the title track from Footloose, which received an Academy Award nomination. [Read more…]

Art Song Festival begins on May 21 at the Cleveland Institute of Music

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by Daniel Hathaway

Christoph Pregardien (373)The every-other-year Art Song Festival at the Cleveland Institute of Music will bring two distinguished guest singers, their collaborative pianists, and ten singer-pianist teams to town from May 21-26 to explore one of the most intimate art forms in the chamber music genre.

The Festival was founded at CIM by George Vassos in 1985, who taught at the Institute for 50 years and remains the festival’s founding artistic director. After moving to Baldwin Wallace University for a decade, the Festival returned to CIM in 2017.

Over the years, the Art Song Festival has invited some of the world’s most notable singers to be guest artists. This year’s guests are tenor Christoph Prégardien (above), pianist Roger Vignoles, soprano Ana Maria Martinez (below), and pianist Craig Terry, who will give master classes throughout the week as well as solo recitals.

“George Vassos takes great pride in seeking artists to bring to Cleveland,” festival executive director Dean Southern said in a telephone conversation. [Read more…]

BlueWater + Cleveland Chamber Choir: the phone call from Carlton Woods to Scott MacPherson

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Scott MacPherson_2016Last year, Carlton Woods was scheduled to conduct the first joint performance between his BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Scott MacPherson’s Cleveland Chamber Choir. But when Woods fell ill, he called MacPherson (left), who stepped in to lead that concert — the premiere of Sam Guarnaccia’s Emergent Universe Oratorio at the Maltz Performing Arts Center.

Another phone call came with worse news. “Carlton was trying to set up his season this year for BlueWater,” MacPherson said during a recent interview, “because he knew he wasn’t going to live to see the day.”

Woods asked MacPherson if he would lead another collaboration between the two chamber ensembles. The BlueWater founder requested two selections for chorus and orchestra, and one for orchestra alone — and that’s what MacPherson will deliver on two dates this weekend.

On Saturday, May 19 at 7:30 pm at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights, then on Sunday, May 20 at 3:00 pm at Baldwin Wallace University’s Gamble Auditorium, MacPherson will lead BlueWater and his own Cleveland Chamber Choir in “Vocal Verve.” [Read more…]

Time Canvas presents “Home Not Home” series

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by Mike Telin

Time-CanvasThe rise of political and social unrest that is being experienced around the world has inspired a variety of  responses from artists. This week the innovative chamber ensemble Time Canvas will present the first of three programs that are part of their Home Not Home project. “We’re exploring how people can be physically at home, but still displaced in some way,” the ensemble’s co-founder Joshua Stauffer said during a telephone interview.

“Right now there are many global conversations going on about what it means to belong to a country and who gets to decide that — as well as arguments over national borders, especially with the rise of extreme nationalism.”

On Saturday, May 19 at 8:00 pm at Historic St. John’s in Ohio City, violinist Chiara Fasani Stauffer, guitarist Joshua Stauffer, and cellist David Ellis will present “Music from the Latin American Baroque.” Tickets can be reserved online. The program will be repeated at 2:00 pm on Sunday, May 20 at the Hudson Library and Historical Society. The Sunday concert is free and open to the public. [Read more…]

Burning River Baroque to present “At a Crossroad: Will You Live, Love, or Die?”

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Malina Rauschenfels PC Tom HugheyAsk about something musically outside the box, and Malina Rauschenfels has probably done it. Yes, she’s played a work for cello with two bows. Yes, she’s performed as a dancing violinist. And yes, of course she’s premiered an upside-down flute duet — her own composition.

So when it comes to singing and playing an instrument at the same time, well that’s nothing for this vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, who co-directs Burning River Baroque along with harpsichordist Paula Maust.

Rauschenfels and Maust will bring that ensemble’s program of French Baroque cantatas and harpsichord solos — titled “At a Crossroad: Will You Live, Love, or Die?” — to three venues in Cleveland from Friday through Sunday. They’ll visit Historic St. John’s Episcopal Church on May 18 at 7:30 pm, Heights Arts on the 19th at 7:00 pm, and Mary Queen of Peace Church on the 20th at 4:00 pm, before heading to Berkeley, California for a performance on June 6.

[Read more…]

Choral Arts Cleveland & Suburban Symphony to mark Martin Kessler’s retirement at Maltz PAC

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by Daniel Hathaway

kesslerphotoCleveland native Martin Kessler graduated from Heights High, then went off to Harvard College, where he conducted the student-run Bach Society Orchestra and Leverett House opera productions. After a year in Europe on a traveling fellowship, the composer-conductor came back to town for graduate studies, and went on to log impressive years of service with several area institutions.

After 32 years on the faculty of University School, where he taught until 2011, 38 years as conductor of the Suburban Symphony, and 15 years at the helm of Choral Arts Cleveland, Kessler will officially mark his retirement in a concert by Suburban and Choral Arts on Wednesday, May 16 at 8:00 pm at the Maltz Performing Arts Center in University Circle.

“There’s something youth-inducing about doing something repetitively,” Kessler said in a recent telephone conversation. “You feel like you’re the same person you were when you started.” The conductor added that he feels it’s better to leave a little bit early than a little bit too late. “My mother retired at 70 from a career as a psychology professor, then ran a bookstore for 20 years. I’m using her as a model.”

[Read more…]

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