by Mike Telin
Although Matthias Ziegler plays principal flute for the Zürich Chamber Orchestra, the versatile musician has earned worldwide attention for his “solo polyphonic” concerts on flute and his electroacoustically amplified contrabass flute. On Thursday, March 19 at 7:30, courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ziegler will bring his spectrum of fascinating sounds to the intimate space of Transformer Station in Ohio City.
“I’m looking forward to the gig,” Ziegler said during a Skype video conversation from his home in Zürich. “I’ve been talking with Tom Welsh at the Museum for some time, and now it finally worked out.” The concert will include music from his album, Ukati, as well as from his most recent recording, La Rusna. “I’ll be bringing the alto and normal flutes too, but the focus will be on the bass and contrabass flutes. It will be a mixed program with some experimental abstract things, as well as some pleasant, ear-catching music.” [Read more…]
When Brad Wells founded the innovative vocal ensemble 
This weekend, NEOSonicFest 2015 begins its five-concert festival of new music sponsored by Cleveland Chamber Symphony in partnership with local new music ensembles. (See our concert listings page for times and locations.) “We’re excited about our second festival,” CCS conductor Steven Smith said during a telephone conversation. “This year we’ve added new venues and some new groups too. Our goal is to broaden the Festival each year, and the addition of new and alternative venues helps to underscore the idea that the performing space can enhance the music that is playing. I think that is especially true when it comes to contemporary music.”
As busy as they are at Severance Hall, members of The Cleveland Orchestra still find time to form a number of chamber music ensembles to perform around the region. One of the newest groups is the Cleveland Wind Octet, who played their inaugural concert on the Rocky River Chamber Music Series last spring. They’ll play their second engagement on Friday, March 20 at 7:30 pm on the Chagrin Arts Series at Chagrin Falls Methodist Church (tickets available 
On Friday, March 20 and Saturday, March 21at 7:30 pm, 
Launched more than thirty years ago, the Grammy Award-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (LAGQ) plays everything from Bach to Bluegrass. But for their visit to the International Series of the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, John Darman, Matthew Greif, William Kanengiser and Scott Tennant will concentrate on early Spanish music before moving on to modern pieces and Kanengiser’s arrangement of Manuel de Falla’s “El Amor Brujo.” The concert takes place on Saturday, March 21 at 7:30 at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights.
“I’ve always been fascinated by dance,” said composer Clint Needham. “In my pieces I think about motion and movement, even if it’s just the performer moving. Between the two of us — myself and the choreographer, Sara Whale — we’ve created something a lot bigger than we each imagined, which I think is a really cool thing. I’m so thrilled that with Verb Ballets we’ve been able to make these Imaginary Dances less imaginary and more tangible, so to speak.”
On Ars Futura’s upcoming program, one of the pieces, entitled Broccoli September, received its premiere last month, but Shuai Wang said she didn’t go — composer Jeremy Allen told her she wasn’t allowed. “The piece specifically instructs the performers not to talk or meet or practice together for it. So when we play it on the 23rd, it will be the first time for all of us. I love the concept of it because it’s all about trust. Our trusting Jeremy, his trusting us, our trusting each other as performers, and trusting the audience as listeners.”
This week at Severance Hall, renowned French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet returns to Cleveland, a city that played an important role early in his career when he won second prize at the Robert Casadesus Piano Competition in 1979 (now the Cleveland International Piano Competition).
When British-born cellist Steven Isserlis and American fortepianist Robert Levin present their all-Beethoven program on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series at Plymouth Church on Tuesday evening, March 10, the audience will come as close as humanly possible to hearing the three sonatas and a variation set as Beethoven conceived them. Isserlis will play a period cello with gut strings, and Levin will perform on a Wilhelm Leschen instrument built in Vienna in 1825.