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Cleveland Women’s Orchestra at Severance: chatting with conductor Eric Benjamin

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by Daniel Hathaway

On Sunday afternoon, March 30, at 3:30 pm, the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra will continue its long tradition of performing in Severance Hall. The ensemble’s 90th Anniversary Concert in what is now known as the Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center will be conducted by music director Eric Benjamin. Tickets are available online.

The main work on the program will feature violinist Olga Dubossarskaya Kaler, cellist Eleanor Pompa, and pianist Emanuela Friscioni, in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Triple Concerto. 

Benjamin was named the fourth music director of the oldest women’s orchestra in the U.S. in 2023, following the lengthy tenures of its founder Hyman Schandler and his successor Robert L. Cronquist, who held the podium for 33 and 22 years respectively. During COVID, John Thomas Dodson served as interim music director for three-and-a-half years, passing the baton to Jungho Kim for a single season. [Read more…]

Clarinetist Amer Hasan celebrates Mozart with the Akron Symphony

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by Stephanie Manning

When Amer Hasan introduced himself to the Akron Symphony in 2019, he did so with the opening movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. “ It was the first piece that I played for Maestro Wilkins in my audition, behind the screen,” Hasan recalled in a recent interview. “So the first three minutes of the concerto is not only the first music I associate with auditions, but also with the Akron Symphony.”

Six years on from that fateful performance, which helped earn Hasan the principal clarinet position, he and the orchestra are set to create some new memories with that same Mozart work. Music director Christopher Wilkins will lead Hasan and the Akron Symphony in a performance of the full, three-movement concerto on Saturday, March 29.

The 7:30 pm concert in E.J. Thomas Hall also features Joseph Bologne’s Overture to The Anonymous Lover, Jessie Montgomery’s Five Freedom Songs, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1. Tickets are available online. [Read more…]

Oblivion Project brings tango to CMA

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by Max Newman

Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla may have passed away over thirty years ago, but his contributions to the tango music genre are truly eternal.

“Even in his sweetest melodies, there are things that are powerful,” said Derek Snyder, the self-described “de-facto leader” of the Oblivion Project, a musical group that has been performing and exploring the works of Piazzolla for over twenty years.

The project will take the stage at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on Friday, March 28 at 7:30 pm. Tickets available online. I was lucky to get to speak to both Snyder and Malena Dayen, the project’s vocalist, over the phone prior to the performance.

[Read more…]

Martha Redbone Hears Her Musical Call

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by Stephanie Manning

Reposted with the permission of Oberlin Conservatory

“If it’s meant to happen, the music will find you.” That’s how Martha Redbone sees it. And it wasn’t until she was in college studying illustration in the late ’80s, that the music found her for good.

Back then, the advent of the first Mac was rapidly changing the art world. “As an illustrator who loved painting and drawing people, that digital world was not for me,” she said. Feeling torn, she turned to music as a creative outlet, starting as a background vocalist before progressing into a career as a lead singer. Together with her songwriting partner (and later life partner) the pianist Aaron Whitby, she began to write music that had stories to tell.

“ There was a connection and a resonance that I got from singing, and it gave me a sense of peace,” she says. “I’ll always be an artist, I’ll always be an illustrator. But the music is what ended up calling me, and I just listened to that call.”

[Read more…]

No Exit Presents: Patchwork, Audra Duo, and the Cleveland State Percussion Ensemble

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by Mike Telin

On Saturday, March 22 “No Exit Presents” welcomes Patchwork — Noa Even, saxophone and Stephen Klunk, drums — back to Cleveland for a free 7:00 pm concert at  Praxis Fiber Workshop.

The performance, which is part of the Duo’s 10th Anniversary tour, will feature works by Jason Charney, Hong-Da Chin, Erin Rogers, and Osnat Netzer.

In an interview with No Exit’s Laura King, Even said that Charney’s Interstittch is one of their earlier commissions and the most melodic, rock-inflected piece on the program.

She added that the other three works are drawn from their debut album, released in May 2020 by New Focus Recordings. “You’ll hear some similar sounds in these pieces — the term “extended technique” seems almost antiquated when multi-phonics, slap tonguing, and superball mallets are now as much a part of the basic vocabulary of our instruments as major scales and drum rudiments are… but each of the composers we worked with use those sounds in their own unique voice and syntax. Hong-Da Chin’s  …time was not passing… it was turning in a circle… is a musical reflection on the cyclical nature of humanity’s path through history. Erin Rogers is a saxophonist herself, and Fast Love has a lot of the eclectic, noisy, improvisatory playing for which she’s known.

[Read more…]

CIM Young Composers Program: a conversation with Jessie Montgomery

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By Mike Telin

“I’m very excited to be part of the CIM summer community,” Grammy Award-winning composer, violinist, and educator Jessie Montgomery said during a recent conversation.

From June 22 through 27, Montgomery will serve as the creative partner for CIM’s Young Composers Program — a five-day intensive for emerging composers consisting of personalized lessons, masterclasses, and workshops with Montgomery, as well as with CIM faculty.

The 2025 program is open to composers ages 12-17 in the Young Innovators division, and ages 18-28 in the Next Gen division. Applications are being accepted now through March 24. Click here for more information.

[Read more…]

Ravel at 150: a conversation with Antonio Pompa-Baldi

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by Mike Telin

Born on March 7, 1875, Maurice Ravel without question is one of the most popular French composers to date. He is admired for his attention to form and craftsmanship and for his masterful orchestration. Although he is frequently associated with Impressionism, he famously rejected the term.

On Friday, March 21 at 7:30 pm in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi will present “Ravel at 150: A Celebration.” The program will feature the composer’s Gaspard de la nuit and the Piano Trio in a, as well as Roberto Piana’s Ravel en Rêve. The evening will also include the world premiere of Luca Moscardi’s Theme and Variations on the name Maurice Ravel. The program is presented as part of CIM’s Insiders Series. The concert is free, but reservations are required.

[Read more…]

Vincent Dubois recital changes cathedrals from St. John’s to Trinity on March 18

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by Daniel Hathaway

French organist Vincent Dubois was appointed one of three titular organists of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris in 2016, sharing the post with his teacher, Olivier Latry, and long-time titular Philippe LeFebre.

Three years later, on April 15, the disastrous fire broke out in the roof of the 12th century building that miraculously spared the cathedral’s organ, but closed the structure for five years. That exiled Dubois and his colleagues from church and organ until a festive re-opening last December.

Dubois will return to Cleveland to play a solo recital on Tuesday, March 18 at 7:30. Ironically, the recitalist will be exiled this time from the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist — but not by fire.

In an email blast, director of music Thomas Fielding wrote, “Our Cathedral Holtkamp organ is unreliable at this point and slated for major renovation work starting right after Easter. This concert will be held, instead, at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.” [Read more…]

Suburban Symphony celebrates 70th anniversary

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by Mike Telin

Since its founding in 1955 by a group of eight musicians, all of whom were high school friends, the Suburban Symphony Orchestra has garnered the reputation of being one of Cleveland’s top-shelf community orchestras. And since turning 70 is always cause for celebration, this weekend the SSO is going to do just that.

On Sunday, March 16 at 2:00 pm at Severance Music Center, Domenico Boyagian will preside over “Seventy at Severance.”

The program opens with Jean Sibelius’ Karelia Suite. For the featured work, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Boyagian and the Orchestra will be joined by the Western Reserve Chorale and West Shore Chorale, and soloists soprano Emily Margevich, mezzo-soprano Quinn Middleman, tenor John Pickle, and baritone Young-Kwang Yoo. WCLV’s Bill O’Connell will emcee the event. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with Domenico Boyagian on Zoom.

Mike Telin: 70 years is cause for a celebration. It’s easy to imagine why you programmed Beethoven No. 9, but how did you come to choose the Sibelius?

Domenico Boyagian: It’s a piece that we’ve wanted to do for a long time. Every once in a while we like to feature certain sections of the orchestra. In this case it’s the horns and brass.

[Read more…]

Poiesis Quartet return to Northeast Ohio for a Cleveland composing celebration

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by Stephanie Manning

The long, rich history of string quartet music leaves today’s ensembles with plenty of classic works to explore. The Poiesis Quartet knows such standard repertoire well — their performances of Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 5 helped earn them their win at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, which skyrocketed the group’s career in 2023.

But you’re more likely to find the Cincinnati-based ensemble playing something new. So when Poiesis was offered the opportunity to perform seven different string quartets by members of the Cleveland Composers Guild, of course they said yes.

That concert on Sunday, March 16  — which will be held in Cleveland State University’s Drinko Hall at 3:00 pm — features both premieres and other contemporary selections from the local composers. [Read more…]

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