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Cleveland Orchestra announces 2018 Summers@Severance events

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by Daniel Hathaway

Summers@SeveranceThe Cleveland Orchestra will welcome three guest conductors to lead its early Friday evening Summers@Severance Concerts in July and August.

Herbert Blomstedt, who will turn 91 shortly before his July 27 appearance with the Orchestra, will lead the ensemble in Brahms’ Fourth Symphony.

Vasily Petrenko, who leads the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the Oslo Philharmonic, will conduct Elgar’s In the South and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra on August 10.

And two artists will make their Severance Hall debuts on August 24 when conductor Jonathan Cohen joins pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout in Haydn’s Piano Concerto No. 11 in D. Also on the program are Handel’s Occasional Oratorio Overture and Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 in g. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland announces its seventh season, to run June 14-30

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by Daniel Hathaway

COHEN-Frank-&-DianaNine concerts under the banner of “In Search of Freedom” will take place in venues around Cleveland from June 14-30 as ChamberFest Cleveland launches its seventh season with a look into the individual struggles and joys of composers.

Founded by Cleveland Orchestra principal clarinet emeritus Franklin Cohen and his daughter, Diana Cohen, who is concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic, the festival will feature such favorite artists as Yura Lee, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Alexi Kenney, Oliver Herbert, Roman Rabinovich, Orion Weiss, Nathan Farrington, Julie Albers, and Amy Schwartz Moretti. Among the new faces in 2018 will be flutist Lorna McGhee and violist Tanner Menees, one of this summer’s artists in residence. [Read more…]

Carl Topilow’s retirement marks the end of an era at CIM

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by Mike Telin

CIM-Orchestra-TopilowOn Wednesday, April 11 at 8:00 pm at Severance Hall, Carl Topilow will lead the CIM Orchestra for the last time before his retirement from the conservatory, after 36 years as the director of CIM’s orchestra and orchestral conducting program.

The concert will include Topilow’s own arrangement of Verdi’s Fanfare from Act III of Otello, Barber’s Overture to The School for Scandal, Korngold’s Violin Concerto with Aaron Chan as soloist, and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 6. The performance is free, but tickets are required. The event will be broadcast live over WCLV 104.9 and wclv.com.

Although Topilow is leaving CIM, marking the end of an era at the school, he will remain in his positions as music director and conductor of the National Repertory Orchestra, the Firelands Symphony, and The Cleveland Pops Orchestra. [Read more…]

Chagrin Concert Series to feature Andrew Sords in new Evan Fein sonata

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by Daniel Hathaway

Fein- EvanViolinist Andrew Sords will bring a new piece by Cleveland-born, New York-based composer Evan Fein (left) to his recital with Eriko Izumida on Sunday afternoon, April 15 at 3:00 pm at Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls. In addition to Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata, Schubert’s Rondo, and Sarasate’s Gypsy Airs, Sords’ program on the Chagrin Concert Series will feature the first performance of Fein’s Untranslatable (Violin Sonata No. 1).

In a telephone conversation from New York, where he teaches at the Juilliard School, Fein noted that he’s known Andrew Sords for years — the composer grew up in Richmond Heights and he and the violinist were in the same class at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Fein wrote a piece for Sords as his senior thesis, and years later, Sords commissioned Untranslatable, which Fein completed last summer.

I asked him where he got the idea for that title.

[Read more…]

CIM, CIA, and Natural History Museum to team up for 360° of Sight + Sound: The Planetarium Project

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by Jarrett Hoffman

PlanetariumIt’s an epic feeling when three superheroes, from separate stories and with their own distinct powers, team up. The real-life, artsy, and Cleveland-related parallel to that? A collaboration next week among three prominent local institutions from three different disciplines.

Next Wednesday, April 18 at 7:00 pm and 7:45 pm, the Cleveland Institutes of Music and Art will join the Museum of Natural History for the fourth edition of 360° of Sight + Sound: The Planetarium Project. Five-minute films by students of CIA, scored with electronic music by student composers of CIM, will be given their world premiere screenings inside the dome of Shafran Planetarium at the Museum.

[Read more…]

Tallis Scholars to reflect on World War I at the Cleveland Museum of Art

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Press_Photo-06_TallisScholars_credit-Nick-Rutter“The war to end all wars” — if only that were true. Known as simply the World War up until the late 1930s, the international disaster we now call WWI came to an armistice a century ago, after claiming over 16 million lives.

A concert this week at the Cleveland Museum of Art will commemorate those lost in that conflict. Embarking on their 71st tour to North America, director Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars — the British vocal ensemble whose specialty is sacred music of the Renaissance — will bring “War and Peace” to Gartner Auditorium on Friday, April 13 at 7:30 pm, as part of the Museum’s Performing Arts Series.

L’Homme Armé (“The Armed Man”), a secular song that was popular in Renaissance France, will open Friday’s concert. “It’s a real battle cry,” Peter Phillips said in a phone call from London. “We all go for it — even I sing in it. That’s a pretty noisy start.”

[Read more…]

Deborah Pae to join Earth and Air at St. Paul’s

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by Daniel Hathaway

PAE-Deborah Sam ZauscherCellist Deborah Pae will journey to Cleveland this weekend for the musical equivalent of a blind date with David Ellis and his Earth and Air: String Orchestra. “I’ve not met David yet,” the cellist said in a telephone conversation. “The first rehearsal will be our first introduction.” Pae will be the featured soloist in a program of music by Jeffrey Mumford and Tchaikovsky on Friday evening, April 6 at 7:30 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights.

Mumford acted as matchmaker for Pae’s concert with Earth and Air. In November of 2016, he brought the cellist to the Signature Series at Lorain County Community College for a solo recital, an engagement which came about in a similar fashion. “Jeffrey simply wrote to me through my website,” Pae said. “He really loves writing for the cello. I was still transitioning from Europe back to the States, and it took a while to discuss projects and possibilities.”

After that solo recital, Mumford suggested Ellis’ string orchestra to Pae, who is professor of cello at Eastern Michigan University and cellist with the Formosa Quartet. [Read more…]

The Case and Cornell Glee Clubs at Church of the Covenant

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by Mike Telin

Cornell Glee Club 2018Long before the creation of the hit television series, glee clubs were a fixture on the campuses of many American colleges and universities. On Saturday, April 7 at 8:00 pm at Church of the Covenant, the Cornell University Glee Club and Case Men’s Glee Club, will present a concert that will feature folk songs and spirituals, selections by Renaissance composers, and pieces from across the world. Tickets are available online.

“We have two historic Men’s Glee Clubs that have been around for over one hundred years coming together for a concert — that doesn’t happen very often,” Jason Falkofsky, music director of the Case Men’s Glee Club said during a telephone conversation. “We were founded in 1868, and are the oldest student-run organization on Cornell’s campus, and the Case Men’s Glee Club (founded in 1897) is the oldest student organization on that Campus,” Robert Isaacs, director of the Cornell University Glee Club (CUGC), said during a separate interview. “ [Read more…]

Ursula Oppens to perform Harvey’s Bird Concerto with Oberlin CME

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by Mike Telin

Oppens-UrsulaThe music of birds has served as inspiration for composers since the beginning of time. In 2016, Classical-music.com, the official website of BBC Music Magazine, honored their 50,000 Twitter followers by naming the six best compositions inspired by birdsong. The list included Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, Respighi’s Gli uccelli (The Birds), Rautavaara’s Cantus Arcticus, Elgar’s Owls, and Messiaen’s Le merle noir (The blackbird). Also on that list is Jonathan Harvey’s Bird Concerto with Pianosong.

On Friday, April 6 at 8:00 pm in Warner Concert Hall, pianist Ursula Oppens will join the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble for a performance of Harvey’s colorful work which features the sounds of 40 Californian birds, including the indigo bunting, orchard oriole, and the golden crowned sparrow. Under the direction of Timothy Weiss, the program also includes Christopher Stark’s True North, Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint, Jesse Jones’ Snippet Variations, and Lee Hyla’s Polish Folk Songs. The concert will be streamed here. Oppens will also present a master class on Wednesday, April 4 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm in the Conservatory’s Bibbins Hall, room 224. Both events are free.  [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest 2018 to present five concerts April 5 through 11

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by Mike Telin

CCS-Y&EC-040614Since 2014, the Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony has sponsored NEOSonicFest, a festival of new music performed by musicians from Northeast Ohio and beyond. The 2018 festival will run from April 5 through 11 (see below for concert dates and times).

Clarinetist Carol Robinson and trumpeter Nate Wooley will kick things off by performing selections from Éliane Radigue’s Occam Ocean on April 5 at MOCA. The composer describes her work as “an ongoing acoustic work with influences ranging from electromagnetic waves, to William of Ockham’s philosophies, to science fiction mythologies.”

The always creative No Exit will return to the Festival on April 6 at Heights Arts. The ensemble was founded by composer Timothy Beyer as an outlet for the commissioning and performance of contemporary avant-garde concert music. No Exit is committed to promoting the works of living composers, particularly the music of young and emerging artists who haven’t yet received either the opportunities or exposure of their better-known counterparts. (Works by Leo Ornstein, Ty Emerson, Per Nørgård, James Praznik, Andrew Rindfleisch & Tristan Murail).

[Read more…]

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