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Six advance to Recital Round at Oberlin Cooper Violin Competition

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Oberlin-Cooper-BannerFollowing the concerto round on Tuesday, July 18, the Jury of the Oberlin Cooper International Violin Competition advanced six competitors to Wednesday evening’s 7:00 pm Concerto Round in Warner Concert Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory. Each will play a 30-minute recital. Three competitors will advance to Friday evening’s final round with Jahja Ling and The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall. Performances will be live streamed here and broadcast live on WCLV, 104.9 FM and wclv.com.

Competitors in order of performance:
Kiarra Saito-Beckman, 18, U.S.A.  
Maya Anjali Buchanan, 17, U.S.A.
Qing Yu Chen, 17, U.S.A.
Johan Dalene, 16, SWEDEN
Christina Jihee Nam, 14, U.S.A.
Zachary Brandon, 18, U.S.A.

 

Violinist Eli Matthews to perform Paganini with The Cleveland Orchestra

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by Mike Telin

When Cleveland Orchestra first assistant principal second violin Eli Matthews performs Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1 this weekend, he will be revisiting a work that has been an important part of his life since he was seven years old. “When I was a wee child my mother took me to the symphony in Memphis, where I grew up, to hear Eugene Fodor play Paganini’s First Violin Concerto,” Matthews recalled during a telephone conversation. “After hearing it, I asked her to get me a violin and she did. From the time I first picked up the instrument, playing that was a big goal of mine and I did many times when I was a teenager — I won some competitions with it, and I’ve played it with orchestras.” [Read more…]

Nightingale Opera Theater to stage Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Consul

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by Daniel Hathaway

Nightingale-ConsulAt the same time last year that Nightingale Opera Theater executive director Melissa Davis was thinking about a title to produce in 2017, she was also feeling distraught by stories she read about the emerging refugee crisis.

“I listened to Menotti’s The Consul and was so moved by it that I thought there was no better time to perform the work than this summer.” That plan has now come to fruition: two performances are scheduled for Friday, July 21 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, July 23 at 2:30 pm in the Barlow Center in Hudson. (Read a plot synopsis here.) [Read more…]

Ten advance to Concerto Round at Oberlin Cooper Violin Competition

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Oberlin-Cooper-BannerFollowing the semifinal round on Monday, the Jury of the Oberlin Cooper International Violin Competition advanced ten competitors to Tuesday’s Concerto Round. Each will play a full concerto with piano. Six competitors will advance to Wednesday’s Recital Round. Here is Tuesday’s schedule of performances in Warner Concert Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Performances will be live streamed here.

1:30 Joseph Hsia, 16, USA, Vieuxtemps’ Concerto No. 5 in a;
2:05 Kiarra Saito-Beckman, 18, USA, Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in D;
2:40 Lingyu Dong, 16, China, Dvořák’s Concerto in a;
2:55 Adrian Steele, 17, USA, Brahms’s Concerto in D;
3:35 Maya Anjali Buchanan, 17, USA, Sibelius’s Concerto in d.

7:00 Qing Yu Chen, 17, USA, Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 2 in g;
7:20 Johan Dalene, 16, Sweden, Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in D;
7:55 Kejun Guo, 18, China, Mendelssohn’s Concerto in e;
8:10 Christina Jihee Nam, 14, USA, Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in D;
8:50 Zachary Brandon, 18, USA, Sibelius’s Concerto in d.

Kent/Blossom Music Festival: a conversation with Daniel McKelway

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by Mike Telin

Clarinetist Daniel McKelway is an admitted fan of the great masterworks for his instrument. On his soon-to-be-released CD on the Louisville, Kentucky-based sonaBLAST Records, he is joined by soprano Amelia Baisley, pianist Hyunsoon Whang, and TCO violist Lembi Veskimets in performances of Mozart’s Trio in E-flat, K. 498, “Kegelstatt,” and Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (“Shepherd on the Rock”). [Read more…]

Cooper International Competition: conversations with Thomas Cooper & 2011 first prize-winner Sirena Huang

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by Mike Telin and Samantha Spaccasi

Thomas-Evon-Cooper_2014For the past seven summers, young musicians have traveled to the Oberlin College campus to compete in the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition.

On Saturday, July 15 at 1:30 pm in Warner Concert Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory, 24 young violinists representing eight U.S. States and eight countries will begin their quest for the $20,000 grand prize as well as the opportunity to perform full concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Jahja Ling in Severance Hall on Friday, July 21 at 7:30 pm. (See our concert listings for details about the semi-final, concerto and recital rounds that will determine who plays in the finals.) [Read more…]

Jasper String Quartet: a conversation with violist Sam Quintal

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by Mike Telin

jasper-6216Since embarking on a professional career in 2006, the Jasper String Quartet has been guided by the philosophy of pursuing projects they are passionate about.

On Tuesday, July 18 at 8:00 pm in Kulas Recital Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory, Credo Chamber Music will present a faculty concert by the Jasper String Quartet, J Freivogel and Sae Chonabayashi, violins, Sam Quintal, viola, and Rachel Henderson Freivogel, cello. The program will include music by Haydn and Brahms and selections from Aaron Jay Kernis’s Quartet No. 3, “River.”

The Ensemble recently performed Kernis’s Third Quartet at London’s Wigmore Hall, one of the work’s co-commissioners. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra “Best of Broadway” — fifteen minutes with vocalist Richard Todd Adams

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by Daniel Hathaway

ADAMS-Richard-ToddVocalists Christina DeCicco, Ted Keegan, Ron Remke, and Richard Todd Adams will join guest conductor Jack Everly and the Blossom Festival Chorus at the Blossom Music Center on Sunday, July 16 at 7:00 pm for “The Best of Broadway.” The playlist includes selections from famous musicals by Irving Berlin, Lerner and Loewe, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein, and Andrew Lloyd Webber, including — to name a few — Oklahoma!, The Phantom of the Opera, The Music Man, Les Misérables, and Candide.

We reached Ricky Todd Adams by telephone at his home in New Jersey to find out how his career trajectory took him to Broadway and national tours of long-running shows — in the Lloyd Webber universe, he’s one of the few American actors to have played the Phantom, as well as Jean Valjean, and Javert. Quite the accomplishment for someone who had very different career plans at the age of 10. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: Season Preview Part Two

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by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

The year 1924 features strongly in the 2017 season at Ohio Light Opera. No fewer than three of the seven scores date from that year — and all are vastly different from each other in setting, style, and country of origin.

It’s almost inconceivable that anything by George Gershwin could be having an American premiere some 80 years after his death, but it’s a fact! In 1924, George went to England for a bit, perhaps to study the musical comedy era from that viewpoint rather than the one at home in the US.  He’d not yet become the success over here that he would achieve a short ten years later. [Read more…]

Syndicate for the New Arts: Rehearsing for the Rust Belt Tour

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by Mike Telin

Syndicate-Rust-Belt-PerformersSummer is a time when many new music ensembles focus on the creation of new works. Some go off to out-of-the-way places such as Banff, Aspen, and even Columbia, Missouri to spend time putting the final touches on new compositions and projects.

Here in Cleveland, The Syndicate for The New Arts have been spending the past week at Historic St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ohio City learning six new pieces that were written especially for the Ensemble’s upcoming seven-city Rust Belt Tour. The Cleveland concert will be held on Sunday, July 16 at 7:00 pm in Historic St. John’s. [Read more…]

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