To guide your last-minute shopping, the staff of ClevelandClassical.com has compiled a list of 18 CDs by artists who work or have a regular presence in the classical music scene in Northeast Ohio. Support your local musicians by gifting their music to family and friends!
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In “Carols IX: Carols of Yore,” Quire Cleveland pulls from past favorites and adds Hanukkah
by Jarrett Hoffman
Quire Cleveland’s latest holiday program spans from the 13th century up to this very decade. But that’s not the only way “Old & New” describes the ensemble’s ninth annual “Carols for Quire” concert, to be performed from December 15-17 in Cleveland and Rocky River. In honor of its tenth anniversary season, the choir will reach into its bag for some favorite carols from seasons past, and will close by celebrating the addition this year of Hanukkah music.
“A lot of what Quire does is Christian music, there’s no question about it,” Ross Duffin, founder and artistic director, said in a recent conversation. “That’s a large part of choral singing generally, just because the church has been such an important and ubiquitous patron for composers and singers throughout history.”
Duffin credited Executive Director Beverly Simmons — who also sings alto in the ensemble and is married to Duffin — for the idea to expand this year’s program to Hanukkah. “Her background is Jewish, and she sings every year for the High Holy Days,” he said.
“Miss Olga” to celebrate 80th birthday with a concert at CIM on Dec. 21
On Thursday, December 21 at 3:00 pm, the well-known Cleveland piano pedagogue Olga Radosavljevich will be honored with an 80th Birthday Concert in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she has taught for nearly six decades. The free event will feature performances by some of her many students, including Cicilia Yudha, who studied with “Miss Olga” for eight years in the Young Artist Program, and now serves on the piano faculty at Youngstown State University.
Yudha told ClevelandClassical.com that Miss Olga’s daughter, Kathy Manker, asked her to write her mother’s biography. “I spent a few afternoons with Ms. Olga earlier this Fall and finally drew the courage to summarize her incredible journey from Yugoslavia to Cleveland and her 57-year tenure at CIM,” Yudha said. Here is the result of those interviews. [Read more…]
Contemporary Youth Orchestra to feature concertos on December 9
by Mike Telin
“Until I joined CYO I wasn’t aware of the world of contemporary music,” flutist Sarah Frisof said by telephone. “But by the time I went to Eastman, I already had my ears opened to listening to music differently. I would credit my time in the orchestra with making that happen.”
On Saturday, December 9 at 7:00 pm in CSU’s Waetjen Auditorium, the Contemporary Youth Orchestra under the direction of Liza Grossman welcomes back alumna Sarah Frisof as soloist in Joan Tower’s Flute Concerto for its first concert of the season. The evening also features a second solo work, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ beautifully pastoral Oboe Concerto, performed by the Orchestra’s concerto competition winner Kate Young. The program will include Mason Bates’ The B-Sides, Clint Needham’s Free Radicals, and Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2. Tickets are available online.
Since her time with CYO, Sarah Frisof has earned degrees from Eastman, Juilliard, and the University of Michigan. In addition to an active performing career, she is also an enthusiastic educator. She has served on the faculty at the University of Kansas and is currently Associate Professor of Flute at the University of Maryland. [Read more…]
Cleveland Chamber Music Society: videos introduce repertoire for the Emerson String Quartet on Dec. 5
by Daniel Hathaway
On Tuesday, December 5, the Emerson String Quartet will return to the Cleveland Chamber Music Society Series for the first time since 2011. Violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violist Lawrence Dutton, and cellist Paul Watkins will play Joseph Haydn’s Quartet Op. 20, No. 2, Benjamin Britten’s Quartet No. 2, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 15 in a 7:30 pm concert at Plymouth Church presented in cooperation with the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Winter Chamber Music Festival.
The Emerson need no introduction to fans of chamber music. Now one of the most venerable quartets on the international circuit, the group has been active for over four decades since its founding in 1976, with only one change in personnel — cellist Paul Watkins joined the Emerson in 2013, replacing David Finckel. On a personal note, I vividly remember hosting them on the Gund Concert Series at Groton School in Massachusetts very soon after they first got together, and when their practice of alternating first and second violins was still an innovation.
The repertory for the Emersons’ December 5 performance may also need no introduction for diehard chamber music aficionados, but other listeners might appreciate knowing a bit about the music and getting some of it in their ears before Tuesday evening. [Read more…]
Conductor Vinay Parameswaran to make COYO debut December 1st
by Mike Telin
“When I was in middle and high school I played percussion in the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, and those six years were incredibly formative for me,” conductor Vinay Parameswaran said during a telephone interview. “It confirmed my love for classical music, and told me that I wanted to be around it in some capacity. It’s been nice coming back to those years in youth orchestra that meant so much to me.”
On Friday, December 1 at 8:00 pm at Severance Hall, Parameswaran will make his debut as music director and conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra. Tickets are available online.
Parameswaran, who also serves as assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra, said that he’s “had a blast” working with the young COYO musicians. “There’s so much talent in that group. The energy and enthusiasm they bring to this music is unparalleled. They’ve really grasped this repertoire, and I can’t wait to see them in action on Friday.” [Read more…]
CityMusic Cleveland: Stefan Willich on music and medicine
by Jarrett Hoffman
“It is truly striking that there are so many people interested and highly proficient in both music and medicine,” conductor and physician Stefan Willich said in a recent conversation. Speaking from his home in Berlin, the artistic director of the World Doctors Orchestra first pointed out the precise structures of the two fields.
“Medicine is based on natural scientific laws and formulas, and music is based on mathematical composition. But then of course you add subjectivity and emotion. The musical interpreter will load a composition with his personality, and as a patient, you wish for a doctor that has empathy for you and makes you truly feel good caring for you. And both fields include quite extreme emotions — in medicine dealing with disease or even death, and in good art covering lots of different emotional states.”
Beginning on Wednesday, December 6 at 7:30 pm at St. Jerome Church in Collinwood, principal guest conductor Stefan Willich will lead CityMusic Cleveland in five free concerts of music by Mozart, Wagner, and Schubert, featuring concertmaster Miho Hashizume, principal violist Jonathan Bagg, and soprano Chabrelle Williams. See our Concert Listings for additional times and locations. [Read more…]
Cavani String Quartet to present “A Viennese Legacy” December 3rd
by Mike Telin
On Sunday, December 3, at 7:00 pm in Mixon Hall, the Cavani String Quartet — Annie Fullard and Mari Sato, violins, Eric Wong, viola, and Si-Yan Darren Li, cello — will present a recital as part of the Cleveland Institute of Music’s annual Winter Chamber Music Festival. “A Viennese Legacy” will include Haydn’s Quartet in F, Op. 77, No. 2, Webern’s Langsamer Satz, and Beethoven’s Quartet No. 15 in A, Op. 132. The concert is free but seating passes are required and available online. For a complete list of Festival events click here.
Last August, just after violist Eric Wong and cellist Si-Yan Darren Li had joined the ensemble, ClevelandClassical.com spoke with all four members of the Cavani Quartet. The following was originally published on August 7 before the Quartet’s performance on the Cuyahoga Valley National Park series.
When two longtime members of a string quartet decide to leave the ensemble, the remaining musicians have to ask themselves what to do next. [Read more…]
Pianist Jonathan Biss to premiere new concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra
by Mike Telin
When pianist Jonathan Biss pitched the idea to the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra of commissioning five composers to write new concertos, each inspired by one of Beethoven’s five concertos, he thought it was a “pie in the sky” suggestion. Much to his surprise the SPCO ran with the idea. “It’s so exciting because I could imagine an organization thinking, ‘Great idea but it’s just too daunting,’ but they were undaunted by it,” Biss said by telephone.
The pianist said that he was equally surprised at the rate at which the Beethoven/5 project expanded. “It’s mushroomed beyond what I could have ever imagined. Something like fifteen different orchestras have joined as partners with one concerto or another, and The Cleveland Orchestra is a co-commissioner of this one.”
On Thursday, November 30 at 7:30 pm at Severance Hall, Fabio Luisi will lead the Cleveland premiere of Salvatore Sciarrino’s Piano Concerto: Il sogno di Stradella with Jonathan Biss as soloist. The concert will also include Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 (“Romantic”). The program will be repeated on Saturday, December 2 at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online. [Read more…]
“Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain” — 20 minutes with Apollo’s Fire’s Amanda Powell
by Jarrett Hoffman
Building on their recent summer programs exploring the Celtic immigrant experience in Appalachia, Apollo’s Fire will celebrate “Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain” with five area performances running from Saturday, December 2 to Sunday, December 10 (see our Concert Listings for times and locations).
Featuring vocalists Amanda Powell and Ross Hauck, Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra will also greatly expand their band from the eight-musician summer troupe, adding to the mix the voices of Apollo’s Singers and the children’s choir Apollo’s Musettes, as well as bagpipes, additional fiddles, and dancers. Guitarist-singer Brian Kay will give a pre-concert talk an hour before each performance.
As artistic director Jeannette Sorrell said in a season preview in October, the program will begin with medieval music from Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral and folk carols. “Then we’ll cross the water for ‘Wanderers Under The Sky,’ which combines the flight of Mary and Joseph into Egypt with immigrants wandering in Appalachia. The second half of the program takes place entirely in a little wooden church during a Christmas service, with Shape-Note hymns and spirituals.” [Read more…]