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Preview: NEOSonicFest — Third concert features organist Jonathan Moyer in “Music from the Abyss” on March 31

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by Mike Telin

Moyer-Newberry-OrganMost listeners encounter the organ through church services, which rarely venture into avant-garde music. NEOSonicFest’s third concert on Monday, March 31 at 7:30 pm at the Church of the Covenant will offer a different view of organ music, according to recitalist Jonathan William Moyer.

“If people come with a different set of expectations and open themselves to new and exciting sounds from the organ, I think it will be a very entertaining evening,” Moyer told us in a phone conversation. “And these are works that are rarely performed because there’s not often a context to do them in. Even at conventions and festivals they shy away from these stronger, more modern expressions.”

Moyer, who is assistant professor of organ at Oberlin in addition to his position as music director and organist at the Covenant, went on to describe his program in detail.

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Preview: NEOSonicFest — Ensemble HD to be featured in second concert in Harkness Chapel on March 30

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by Mike Telin

Ensemble-HD-Happy-Dog“What I think is great about NEOSonicFest is that the groups that are performing are a good balance and represent what is going on in the music scene here in Cleveland,” Ensemble HD and Cleveland Orchestra principal flutist Joshua Smith said recently by telephone. “I think people will find there is a broad spectrum of musical examples of what the term New Music means.” On Sunday, March 30 beginning at 7:30 pm in Harkness Chapel at Case Western Reserve University, Ensemble HD with special guests Verb Ballets, will feature music that represents a variety of musical styles and combinations of instruments.

Ensemble HD first gained national attention by bringing classical music to new audiences with their performances at the Happy Dog Bar on Cleveland’s near West Side (above). Led by Joshua Smith, the ensemble includes pianist Christina Dahl, associate professor of music at SUNY Stony Brook, and four of Smith’s fellow Cleveland Orchestra members: violinist Amy Lee, oboist Frank Rosenwein, cellist Charles Bernard, and violist Joanna Patterson-Zakany.

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Preview: Violinist Miranda Cuckson to appear both at LCCC and Transformer Station next week

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by Mike Telin

CUCKSON-MirandaCalled “top-notch in all respects” (Sequenza 21) and “an artist to be reckoned with” (Gramophone), violinist and violist Miranda Cuckson is highly acclaimed for her performances of a wide range of repertoire, from early eras to the most current creations. “The core repertoire is still very much a part of me as a musician, but I feel I need to relate to the time that I am living in,” the engaging Cuckson said by telephone when asked why she chose to follow new music as her career path.

“I also just have a bit of an adventurous streak in terms of discovering new means of expression and new ways of making sounds and ways of playing my instrument. And the more I got into that the more fascinating I found it.”

On Monday, March 31 as part of Lorain County Community College’s Signature Series and on Tuesday, April 1 as part of the CMA@Transformer Station Series, Miranda Cuckson will present concerts featuring adventurous music for solo violin.

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Preview: First NEOSonicFest concert to feature Geoffrey Peterson’s The Edmund Fitzgerald

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by Mike Telin

Edmund-FitzgeraldNEOSonicFest opens on Friday, March 28 at 7:30 pm in Cleveland State University’s Drinko Hall, when Steven Smith leads the Cleveland Chamber Symphony in a program that features Ed London’s Melodrama and Federico’s Follies. The concert also includes Geoffrey Peterson’s The Edmund Fitzgerald, a concerto for piano and strings with Nicholas Underhill as soloist, and special guests Verb Ballets, Richard Dickinson, choreographer.

Geoffrey Peterson’s concerto chronicles the tragic shipwreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior in November, 1975. Its four movements are entitled “Embarkment,” “The Gales,” “Six-Fathom Shoal” (“We’re holding our own”) and “Entombment-Dirge”. The concerto makes use of several musical quotes. The first is Spanish Ladies, an English sea chantey, which appears in both the first and third movements. The second is the funeral march theme from the second movement of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, which is heard in the fourth movement of the concerto. In addition, a chime is rung 29 times during the final bars of the piece to memorialize the men who lost their lives.

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Preview: Cleveland Classical Guitar Society — an interview with David Russell

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by Mike Telin

Russell-DavidOn Saturday, March 29 beginning at 7:30 pm in Plymouth Church, Cleveland Classical Guitar Society presents internationally acclaimed classical guitarist David Russell in a concert featuring works by Giuliani, Scarlatti, Granados, Bach and Albéniz. At 6:45 students from the CCGS education program will perform a program under the direction of Teaching Artist Mike McNamara.

Considered one of today’s preeminent musical performers, David Russell received a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) for his 2004 recording of “Aire Latino.” His many additional awards include being named a Fellow of The Royal Academy of Music in London and having a conservatory hall and a street in Spain named after him.

While preparing for our conversation I read a number of interviews with David Russell and nearly all the interviewers commented on what a genuinely nice, down to earth guy he is. And I must concur. I reached David Russell by telephone in San Francisco and began by asking him about how he makes his programming decisions.

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Preview: Moore and Carterette to play organ/piano recital at Stambaugh Auditorium March 30

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by Daniel Hathaway

Moore-CarteretteOrganist Edward Moore and pianist Nathan Carterette will perform both as soloists and as an unusual duo on the Stambaugh Auditorium Organ Series in Youngstown on Sunday afternoon, March 30 at 4:00 pm. Both musicians are recent transplants to Pittsburgh, Moore having moved there from Washington DC, and Carterette from Cleveland.

They met when Carterette attended an organ/piano concert that Moore gave at East Liberty Presbyterian Church, where he serves as director of music. “I heard them play Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Carterette said during a Skype to two cell phones conversation during a rehearsal break at Stambaugh last week. “It was so fantastic. Ed produced every instrument in the orchestra on the organ.”

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Preview: Opera Per Tutti — Puccini’s La Rondine at Cleveland Public Theatre

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by Mike Telin

RehearsalOpera Per Tutti Artistic Director Scott Skiba has one thing to say about this week’s performances of Puccini’s La Rondine. “I want YOU to come to the opera! If you’ve never been to hear opera, this is a great place to start,” Skiba exclaimed with enthusiasm during a recent telephone conversation. “There’s comedy as well as great drama, and Puccini’s music is beautiful. And, if you’re already a lover of opera, the production presents a rare opportunity for you to see one of his lesser performed works.”

On Friday, March 28 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, March 30 at 3:00 pm in Cleveland Public Theatre’s Gordon Square Theatre, Opera Per Tutti presents a fully staged production of Giacomo Puccini’s La Rondine. “This is our biggest production to date, and it really is ideal for anyone who is new to opera,” Skiba said, adding that he believes that opera is not about things that happened hundreds of years ago. “It is something that is timeless. It isn’t a story about what happened, it is a story about what happens.”

La Rondine (The Swallow) has an interesting history, and as Skiba points out, “it is Puccini’s experiment in writing operetta.”

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Preview: The Cleveland Institute of Music presents “A Celebration of Community”

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by Carlyn Kessler, special contributor

CIM-Mahler-2bThe Cleveland Institute of Music will present its second “Celebration of Community” on Friday, March 28 at 8:00 pm in Severance Hall, when CIM president Joel Smirnoff will lead the CIM Orchestra and vocalists, the Cleveland School of the Arts (CSA) Chorus and Instrumentalists, the Singers’ Club of Cleveland, and the Antioch Baptist Church Sanctuary Choir in Beethoven’s monumental Symphony No. 9.

The concert features soloists Catheryne Shuman, soprano, Samantha Gosard, mezzo-soprano, CIM faculty member Vinson Cole, tenor, and Brian Johnson, baritone.

The concert is a public manifestation of CIM’s commitment to the Cleveland community. “Culture is the spontaneous emanation of community interaction,” Joel Smirnoff said in a recent conversation. “There is no culture without community.”

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Preview: Cleveland Chamber Symphony’s NEOSonicFest debuts with six concerts from March 28 through April 6

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by Mike Telin

London-EdSince its founding in 1980 by the late composer and Cleveland State University professor Edwin London (left), the Cleveland Chamber Symphony has remained true to its core mission of performing and promoting new music that “dares to explore”. This week the Grammy Award-winning orchestra enters a new phase in its life when it takes on the role of organizer and host of NEOSonicFest, a festival of new music.

“We’re very excited about it,” said Cleveland Chamber Symphony music director Steven Smith during a recent telephone conversation. “We’ve been thinking about how to keep the name and activities of CCS alive over the past several years. We thought the idea of concentrating our activities into a specific period of time would give a greater focus on what CCS does.”

NEOSonicFest opens on Friday, March 28 at 7:30 pm in Cleveland State University’s Drinko Hall, when Steven Smith leads the Cleveland Chamber Symphony in a program that features Ed London’s Melodrama and Federico’s Follies. The concert also includes Geoffrey Peterson’s The Edmund Fitzgerald, a concerto for piano and strings with Nicholas Underhill as soloist, and special guests Verb Ballets, Richard Dickinson, choreographer.

[Read more…]

Preview: Bach’s 329th Birthday Bash at Pilgrim and Trinity

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by Mike Telin

BachBashEach year coinciding with the first full day of spring, the music world gathers to celebrate the birthday of the great Johann Sebastian Bach.

2014 marks the master’s 329th birthday and on Friday, March 21 beginning at 7:00 pm at Pilgrim Church, Arts Renaissance Tremont in partnership with Music & Art at Trinity will honor the occasion with a Birthday Bash.

Trinity Chamber Choir and strings will be led by organist and conductor Elizabeth Lenti. Soloists include Tamer Edlebi, oboe, and Jinjoo Cho, violin, and vocalists Judith Overcash, Erin Smith & Malina Rauschenfels. [Read more…]

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