ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad

Pre•Views

Oberlin to present Winter Term Opera Angel’s Bone

by

by Jarrett Hoffman

Du Yun2It’s hard to say what’s most interesting about the new opera Angel’s Bone, which will receive its second-ever performance next week in Oberlin. It could be the music of Oberlin Conservatory alum Du Yun (left), which incorporates punk rock, cabaret, and electronics. It could be the libretto by Royce Vavrek, which examines sexual slavery and trafficking through a prism of magical realism. Or maybe it’s the challenge for performers of portraying the perpetrators of those crimes, making them human.

On January 31 at 7:30 pm at The Cat in the Cream Coffeehouse, Oberlin Conservatory presents a Winter Term Opera production of Angel’s Bone, directed by Christopher Mirto and conducted by Matthew Chamberlain. After opening night, which is part of Cleveland Opera Theater’s {NOW} Festival, performances continue on February 2, 4, 6, and 7 — see our Concert Listings for exact times. Admission is free, but tickets are required and seating is limited. Talk-back sessions including Oberlin faculty, students from the production, and community support groups will follow each performance.

[Read more…]

{NOW} Festival to present Dawn Sonntag’s Verlorene Heimat (“Lost Homeland”)

by

by Mike Telin

SonntagAlthough composer Dawn Sonntag was well-versed in writing art song, vocal chamber music, and works for chorus, there was one thing missing from her catalogue of works for the voice — an opera. “I wanted to compose one but I had not found a libretto that I connected with,” the Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department at Hiram College said during a telephone conversation.

Then one night during dinner with her mother-in-law, that changed. “I knew she had been born and spent part of her childhood in East Prussia, but I didn’t know why she had left. So I asked her and she told me the whole story. And when I was listening to it I thought, this is it!”

On Saturday, January 27 at 7:30 pm at the Maltz Center for the Performing Arts, Cleveland Opera Theater will present the Cleveland premiere of Dawn Sonntag’s Verlorene Heimat (“Lost Homeland”) as part of the company’s {NOW} Festival. Presented in collaboration with the Cleveland Composers’ Guild, the opera is based on the true story of the East Prussian refugee family of Christa Neuber Kuske (1937 – 2012) and the Jewish-Ukrainian girl they sheltered.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Opera Theater to present {NOW} Festival

by

by Mike Telin

Verlorene HeimatMore often than not, the creation of a new opera is a lengthy process. While composers such as Mozart and Rossini were able to dash off operas in record time, new titles can go through a long gestation period.

Beginning later this week, Cleveland Opera Theater will present its second annual {NOW} Festival featuring performances of new opera works at various stages of development, including readings, workshops, and staged productions. {NOW} is presented in collaboration with The Cleveland Composers’ Guild, Baldwin Wallace Conservatory, Oberlin Conservatory, and the Maltz Center for the Performing Arts. All events are free and open to the public (some require registration). Following each performance audiences will have the opportunity to engage with the creative teams and performers during talk-back sessions.

{NOW} begins on Friday the 26th at 7:30 pm at the Maltz Center with a reading of Obie award winner and Garcia Lorca scholar Caridad Svich’s new libretto based on Lorca’s last play, Bernarda Alba. [Read more…]

Cleveland Opera Theater and Composers’ Guild team up for New Scenes Workshop

by

by Jarrett Hoffman

COT logoConfused courtship, food addiction, and 19th-century Neapolitan song provided the inspiration for three new operas, selections of which will be heard this weekend. Cleveland Opera Theater will partner with the Cleveland Composers’ Guild to present a workshop of scenes from The Higgler, Taste of Addiction, and Piedigrotta, written by Guild members Margi Griebling-Haigh, Ryan Charles Ramer, and Lorenzo Salvagni.

The piano-accompanied, twenty-minute readings will be performed on Saturday, January 27 at 3:00 pm and on Sunday, January 28 at 7:30 pm at the Maltz Performing Arts Center. Both events, part of COT’s {NOW} Festival, are ticketed but free, and include talk-back sessions with the performers and composers.

“Margi, Ryan, and Lorenzo each have incredibly unique styles,” Guild chairman Joseph Hollings said in an email. “If a music lover is looking for a way in to contemporary opera, if a veteran opera-goer wants a refreshing afternoon or evening out, or if anyone wants a chance to quiz the composers about how the musical sausage is made, they don’t want to miss this.” [Read more…]

Akron’s Urban Troubadour wins $80K Knight Foundation grant

by

by Hannah Schoepe

BERKNER-JaneOut of a field of 45 semifinalists, the Knight Foundation announced 17 winners of the Akron Knight Arts challenge in November of 2017, distributing funds totaling $743,000. Urban Troubadour received the Foundation’s support with a grant in the amount of $80,000. Formed by John and James Knight, the Knight Foundation supports excellent journalism, arts, and technology in Akron, Detroit, Miami, and St. Paul — communities that were instrumental to the success of the Knight-Ridder Newspapers. The Arts Challenge was established to nurture artistic talents and creative ideas that benefit those communities.

Urban Troubador is an excellent example of just such a creative idea. Established by flutist and Akron resident Jane Berkner, this collective of Northeast Ohio musicians inhabits unusual spaces, turning concerts into happenings and promoting a fresh way for the community to experience public performances. The musicians come together to play in venues such as microbreweries, restaurants, and loft spaces, combining music with gallery openings, wine tastings, and more.

“Big halls are a thing of the past, and concerts in homes and unconventional spaces are all the rage,” Jane Berkner said via email. [Read more…]

Tuesday Musical to present Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society

by

by Mike Telin

TMAJan23

“I love playing chamber music, and CMS concerts are some of the highlights of my season,” violinist Chad Hoopes said by telephone from New York. “You’re playing some of the greatest music and traveling with wonderful people, which is fun because you’re not alone.”

On Tuesday, January 23 at 7:30 pm in E.J. Thomas Hall, Hoopes will join his Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center colleagues — Wu Han and Michael Brown, piano, Paul Huang, violin, Matthew Lipman, viola, and Dmitri Atapine, cello — in a concert presented by Akron’s Tuesday Musical Association. The program juxtaposes music by two giants of Romanticism — Antonín Dvořák and Johannes Brahms. Click here for program details and ticket information.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project to host “Toasty Tunes” at the Bop Stop

by

by Mike Telin

Even-BennConversations between two like-minded people over coffee can often inspire great ideas. Such was the case a year and a half ago when saxophonist Noa Even and cellist Sophie Benn got together to discuss ways to promote new music in Cleveland. The result of that meeting was a new addition to the area’s music scene — the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project.

On Thursday, January 18 at the Bop Stop, CUSP will host “Toasty Tunes,” a winter fundraiser to support the organization’s Re:Sound New Music Festival, to be held from June 7-10 of this year. The doors will open at 7:00 pm for a meet-and-greet with the evening’s performers and the CUSP team. Performances by saxophone duo Ogni Suono (Noa Even and Phil Pierick) and saxophonist/composer Nick Zoulek will begin at 7:30 pm. Attendees can learn more about CUSP and Re:Sound during a conversation with the founders moderated by me, Mike Telin. Click here for tickets and event information. The evening will conclude with a late-night improv jam session at 10:00 pm. Bring your own instruments and join in — that session is free but donations will be appreciated.

Noa Even said during a recent telephone conversation that the timing of that meeting over coffee was fortuitous. [Read more…]

Akron Symphony welcomes guest conductor Daniel Hege

by

by Mike Telin

Hege-Daniel“I can look at all four symphonies of Brahms and say, ‘Oh that one is my favorite.’ Then I think, ‘No this one is,’” conductor Daniel Hege said during a recent telephone conversation. “But I have so much admiration for the Second Symphony. It has a lot of passion and emotional power all the way through, including a brilliant finish.”

On Saturday, January 20 at 8:00 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall, Daniel Hege will return to the Akron Symphony podium to lead a program that features Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 and Hungarian Dances Nos. 1 and 5. The concert will also include Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Gabriela Martinez as soloist. Click here for ticket information.

Hege, who serves as Music Director of the Wichita Symphony as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the Tulsa Symphony and the Binghamton Philharmonic, said that developing Saturday’s program was an organic process.

[Read more…]

Cohen and Bognár at Arts Renaissance Tremont: two conversations with the clarinetist

by

by Jarrett Hoffman

cohen_sqFriends of fifteen years will come together as duo partners in the next concert on the Arts Renaissance Tremont series. On Sunday, January 21 at 3:00 pm at Pilgrim Congregational Church, clarinetist Franklin Cohen and pianist Zsolt Bognár will play a program that includes art songs by Beethoven and Fauré, two famous sonatas by Poulenc and Brahms, and a rarely-heard sonata by Mieczysław Weinberg. A freewill offering is requested.

“It’s beautiful music and I really look forward to playing it, especially in that church,” Cohen said in a recent conversation. “It’s extraordinary — a beautiful space and a landmark of Cleveland — and it has all Tiffany windows. I’ve always liked playing there.”

[Read more…]

Per Enflo to return to Chagrin Series for Mozart concertos on January 21

by

by Daniel Hathaway

EnfloMost of us feel fortunate if we can make a dent in a single professional career. Thus it’s inspiring that Per Enflo has distinguished himself both as a theoretical mathematician and a concert pianist. His interest in those parallel but distinct disciplines dates from his childhood in Sweden, where he first showed an aptitude for mathematics and played his first full recital on a professional concert series at the age of 11.

As a mathematician, Enflo has cracked several seemingly unsolvable problems in functional analysis while teaching at Berkeley, Stanford, the École Polytechnique in Paris, and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. In 1989, he was appointed one of three “University Professors” at Kent State. In addition to teaching mathematics, he also worked on such cross-disciplinary issues as the zebra mussel invasion and the phosphorus loading of Lake Erie, anthropology and human evolution, and acoustics and noise reduction. Upon retirement in 2012, he moved back to Sweden, but still makes regular appearances in the States.

This weekend, Enflo will return to Northeast Ohio to play Mozart’s 17th and 21st Concertos with the Cleveland Virtuosi on the Chagrin Concert Series at Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls. [Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us