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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…]

“The Prometheus Project,” as seen and heard through the archives

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by Mike Telin

Heinrich_fueger_1817_prometheus_brings_fire_to_mankindIn Greek mythology, Prometheus not only defied the gods by stealing fire, he gave that fire to humanity so that civilization could progress. “I think in a way everyone can be a Prometheus,” Cleveland Orchestra music director Franz Welser-Möst says during a video where he discusses examples of Promethean heroes and the difficulty of freedom. “MLK is one, Dr. King clearly…was extremely powerful in taking that fiery spark of an idea and carrying that torch with him to the very end of his life. When you read his speeches there’s constantly that talk that we have to empower people.”

This week at Severance Hall, The Cleveland Orchestra will conclude its centenary season with “The Prometheus Project,” a festival celebrating Beethoven’s Promethean ideas about how art can transform humanity. On Wednesday, May 9 at 7:30 pm in Reinberger Hall, Franz Welser-Möst will discuss his conception for the project and the idea of re-examining Beethoven’s music for modern audiences by looking at the composer’s own thoughts, and the ideas and beliefs of the revolutionary era he lived in. [Read more…]

Modern Snare Drum Competition: 15 minutes with judge Marc Damoulakis

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by Jarrett Hoffman

DAMOULAKIS-MarcIt’s a familiar feeling for musicians: to have mastered a difficult piece, then discover someone a quarter their age playing it twice as well. “It’s amazing from year one to now,” Marc Damoulakis said in a recent conversation about the Modern Snare Drum Competition. “Stuff that we used to think was hard, these kids are coming in younger and younger and playing with ease. And I honestly don’t think it would’ve happened without this competition.”

Damoulakis, who joined The Cleveland Orchestra in 2006 and was appointed principal percussion in 2013, has been a fixture on the competition’s judging panel. This 11th edition, to be presented by Pearl and held at the Cleveland Institute of Music on Saturday and Sunday, May 12 and 13 — open to the public on Sunday — will mark his 10th time judging.

[Read more…]

Music at the Meeting House — “Beyond Boundaries: Songs of the People”

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by Mike Telin

Powell-Amanda“I’m excited about this particular program because I’ve been doing the ‘Beyond Boundaries’ project for many years,” vocalist Amanda Powell said during a telephone conversation. In the past the project has focused heavily on jazz. “I’ve always wanted to create an iteration of it that included some folk artists. And this program is the beginning of that leg of my exploration.”

On Sunday, May 13 at 4:00 pm at First Church in Oberlin, Music at the Meeting House will present Amanda Powell, lutenist Brian Kay, and bassist Dave Morgan in a free concert titled “Beyond Boundaries: Songs of the People.”

Powell said that she and her colleagues came up with the idea for Sunday’s program when they were creating another project for Apollo’s Fire. [Read more…]

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