by Daniel Hathaway
Brahms lovers (unless they particularly dote on his symphonies) will be ecstatic about what The Cleveland Orchestra is offering this weekend: two sets of concerts, each featuring the powerhouse pianist Yefim Bronfman in one of the two concertos, supplemented with other works by the celebrated nineteenth-century composer.
And in a first-ever occurrence, New York organ virtuoso Paul Jacobs will have the Severance Hall stage all to himself for the first half of the concerts on Saturday, February 21 at 8 and Sunday, February 22 at 3. Jacobs will “open” for the Orchestra with selections from the organ music of Brahms and Johann Sebastian Bach, played on Severance Hall’s 94-rank Norton Memorial Organ, built in Boston by the Ernest M. Skinner Co. in 1931, and restored and relocated by Ohio’s Schantz Organ Co. during the recent Severance Hall renovation. [Read more…]
“This is my first time singing Don Pasquale,” Polish-born bass Pawel Izdebski said in a recent phone conversation, “although I have done concert performances of the famous duet with Norina and the Act II Finale, so I already knew about a third of the role.
Mozart began his opera seria, La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus), with Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, shortly after he had completed the majority of his comic opera, The Magic Flute. However the two operas are worlds apart from each other. Clemenza’s plot centers around Vitellia, daughter of deposed emperor Vitellio, who wants revenge against Tito and convinces his best friend Sesto to execute him. You can read a full synopsis 
Sometimes personalities and musical sensibilities between members of a chamber music ensemble just seem to click. Such is the case with the acclaimed Jerusalem Quartet, who first came together while still in high school. But according to violinist Alexander Pavlovsky, at that time, becoming a world-class string quartet was the furthest thing from their minds. “We did not think a lot about the future. We were only concentrating on building a repertoire and enjoying every moment of being part of such an amazing ensemble.”
This past Sunday, guitarist Jason Vieaux became a first-time Grammy Award winner in the “Best Classical Solo Performance” category for his Azica Records CD, Play. On Saturday, February 14, Vieaux will be the featured soloist in Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with the Akron Symphony under the direction of Christopher Wilkins.
If you think packing for a plane trip is a challenge, here’s what Rex Benincasa has to take through the security checkpoint. “I’m bringing a low tension tabor, a darbuka, a frame drum from Morocco called the Alun — which is a Berber instrument from the Atlas Mountains — an Arabic tambourine or riq, a North African or Egyptian tambourine, an assortment of ankle bells, camel bells, clamshell bells, Indian brass bells, castanets, a classical tambourine, a triangle that’s made out of a drill used to drill into stone, and an assortment of little shakers, claves and maracas,” he said via cell phone, having just buckled himself in for the last leg of his flight from New York to Cleveland. “Homeland Security used to tear everything apart but now they just swipe me for explosives and let me slide.”
On Friday, February 13, assistant conductor Brett Mitchell will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a live performance of Bernard Herrmann’s score to Vertigo, coordinating the music with a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 psychological thriller.
“I was trying to play Telemann in the subways, I really was,” said PROJECT Trio flutist Greg Pattillo. “And no one really cared. But you play a funny video game tune with the beatbox, and people did stop, and they did care to listen.”