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Preview: CIM at MOCA: Suddenly It’s Evening — a conversation with Keith Fitch

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by Mike Telin

FITCH-KeithCurrently on exhibit at MOCA, DIRGE: Reflections on [Life and] Death, explores how contemporary artists use their individual practices to capture, react to, reflect on, and make sense of mortality. On Thursday, March 20 beginning at 8:00 pm, the CIM New Music Ensemble will present a concert titled “Suddenly It’s Evening,” featuring the music of George Crumb, Donald Erb and Harrison Birtwistle. Each of the evening’s works was chosen specifically in keeping with the spirit of MOCA’s current exhibition.

“There is no shortage of repertoire dealing with the subject matter,” Keith Fitch, director of the CIM New Music Ensemble, said in a recent telephone conversation. “Chris Auerbach-Brown from MOCA and I were talking about that when we were planning the program, but all three pieces just kind of said, “Include Us!”

Thursday’s performance is what Fitch calls a progressive concert and begins at 8:00 pm in MOCA’s fourth floor Main Gallery with George Crumb’s Books II and III of Madrigals. [Read more…]

Preview: Jupiter Quartet to perform final Oberlin Residency concert

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by Mike Telin

Jupiter-SQOn Thursday, March 20 at 8:00 pm in Kulas Recital Hall, the Jupiter Quartet will perform the final concert of the group’s two-year residency at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. The program includes quartets by Beethoven and Bartók.

Over the last two academic years, the Jupiters, Meg Frievogel and Nelson Lee, violins, Liz Frievogel, viola and Daniel McDonough, cello, have served at Oberlin as Quartet in Residence. They have come to Oberlin three weeks each year to teach lessons, coach chamber music, and perform. “It’s been wonderful and we’re all a little bit sad that it’s coming to an end,” Daniel McDonough said in a recent telephone conversation. “The students are such a joy to work with. They’re so inquisitive, bright and curious, so it’s really been a lot of fun.” [Read more…]

Preview: Cleveland Orchestra announces its 2014-2015 season

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CLEVELAND—March 16, 2014

TCO102413-MastroianniThe Cleveland Orchestra has released program details for its 97th season in 2014-2015.

Highlights include performances of J.S. Bach’s Mass in b-minor, a three-program celebration of Pierre Boulez’s 90th birthday, and Strauss’s opera Daphne, all conducted by music director Franz Welser-Möst, and Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust, led by guest conductor Charles Dutoit.

Guest artists include pianists Yefim Bronfman, Lang Lang, Mitsuko Uchida, Jorge Federico Osorio, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Daniil Trifonov, Jeremy Denk and Marc-André Hamelin, violinists Hilary Hahn, Vadim Gluzman, Alina Ibragimova and Christian Tetzlaff, mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill, cellists Alisa Weilerstein and Gautier Capuçon, and conductors Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jahja Ling, Fabio Luisi, James Gaffigan, Robin Ticciati, Giancarlo Guerrero, Jakub Hrůša, Tugan Sokhiev, Juanjo Mena, Lionel Bringuier, Susanna Mälkki and Bernard Labadie. [Read more…]

Preview: Cellist Daniel McDonough and violist/coach Michael Strauss share insights about Bartók’s string quartets

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by Mike Telin

McDonoughFor the fourth part of our preview of the Takács Quartet’s complete cycle of Bartók string quartets on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series at Plymouth Church on March 17 and 18, we spoke with Jupiter Quartet cellist Daniel McDonough and Oberlin’s Associate Professor of Viola and Chamber Music Michael Strauss about performing and coaching the Bartók quartets, and come back full circle to musicologist Peter Laki for final reflections about the Takács Quartet. We spoke with all three by telephone.

Performing the Bartók Quartets. Cellist Daniel McDonough said, “The wonderful thing about the Bartók quartets is that they are so carefully constructed. Like Beethoven, there is so much attention to detail so the challenge is finding clarity in the texture and making sure the evolution of the musical motives are really clear to the audience without ever becoming too cerebral-sounding. We are always looking for an emotional way to bring clarity to the music. Again, like Beethoven, I think the combination of head and heart is wh [Read more…]

Preview: Annie Fullard and Donald Rosenberg talk about their experiences with Bartók’s string quartets

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by Mike Telin

CavaniQuartetFor the third part of our preview of the Takács Quartet’s complete cycle of Bartók string quartets on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series at Plymouth Church on March 17 and 18, we sought comments from a well-known violinist and a seasoned music critic, both of whom have — by playing and listening — developed an intimate relationship with Bartók’s quartets.

Annie Fullard is founding first violinist of the Cleveland’s Cavani Quartet (right in photo) and a committed chamber music coach at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Donald Rosenberg served as music critic of the Cleveland Plain Dealer from 1992-2013, and has recently been named editor of Early Music America Magazine. We spoke to them separately by telephone.

Annie Fullard has had hands-on experience with the Bartók Quartets. “I’ve played them a few times now and I love them,” she said. [Read more…]

Preview: Peter Laki and Brian Alegant talk about Bartók’s inventive use of motives in the quartets

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by Mike Telin

Bartok-AutographCR

If you’ve never really gotten into the music of Béla Bartók, the Takács Quartet’s two-evening cycle of his six string quartets on March 17 and 18 on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series at Plymouth Church is an excellent opportunity to immerse yourself in his musical language.

In Part One of this series of articles, we spoke with Peter Laki about Bartók’s creative use of elements derived from folk music in writing his quartets. Laki went on to note that “the third quartet, which is very abstract, is filled with these tiny motives that he never would have come up with had he not been steeped in folk music. [Read more…]

Preview: Peter Laki talks about Bartók and folk music

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by Mike Telin

LAKI-PeterFor the first of four articles leading up to the Takács Quartet’s performances of the complete Bartók string quartets on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series on March 17 and 18 at Plymouth Church, we spoke by telephone with Bard Conservatory’s visiting associate professor, Peter Laki.

Laki began writing program notes for The Cleveland Orchestra in 1990. He has taught at Case Western Reserve University and has also held appointments at Oberlin, John Carroll and Kent. A native Hungarian, he received his diploma in musicology from the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, and is an authority on Hungarian music.

In addition to giving the 6:30 pm pre-concert lectures before each Takács Quartet performance, Laki will lecture about “Bartók and the Hungarian Musical Tradition” at the Hungarian Heritage Museum on Saturday, March 15 at 2 pm.

Mike Telin: You must be one of the world’s foremost authorities on Béla Bartók.

Peter Laki: I don’t know about that, but I am from Hungary and I did go to school at the Franz Liszt Academy where every day I walked past the classroom with the plaque that said “This is where Bela Bartók taught piano.” [Read more…]

Preview: Cleveland Chamber Music Society presents the Takács Quartet in complete Bartók cycle

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TakacsQuartetFollowing the Takács Quartet’s April 2013 performance of Bartók’s six string quartets, Classical Voice North Carolina’s headline read, “Bartók String Quartets — Takács Quartet: Genius Meets Brilliance””. On Monday, March 17 and Tuesday, March 18 beginning at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society presents the Takács Quartet, Edward Dusinberre and Károly Schrantz, violins, Geraldine Walther, viola and András Fejér, cello in performances of the six quartets by Bartók.

Monday’s performance includes Quartets Nos. 1, 3, & 5 and on Tuesday, Quartets Nos. 2, 4 & 6. Beginning at 6:30 pm each evening a pre-concert lecture will be given by Cleveland Orchestra program annotator and Bard Conservatory of Music faculty member, Peter Laki. Laki will also give a lecture on “Bartók and the Hungarian Musical Tradition” at Cleveland’s Hungarian Heritage Museum on March 15 (see concert listings).

Beginning Thursday, March 12 and continuing through Sunday, March 16, ClevelandClassical will post daily features highlighting Bartók’s music, specifically his six string quartets. Musicians, musicologists and audiences will share their thoughts about the composer’s music and his legacy to classical music.

Preview: Contemporary Youth Orchestra to explore music of Pixar, Disney and Marvel on March 15

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by Daniel Hathaway

BambiThose of us (of a certain age) who grew up watching the animated films (call them cartoons if you must) of the mid-twentieth century received a subliminal dose of well-crafted music that would hold up well in the concert hall — and probably turned us in a good musical direction as a result.

Now the film music of Disney, Pixar and Marvel has moved from celluloid into symphonic circles, as The Cleveland Orchestra has recently been proving in performances at Blossom. On Saturday, March 15 at 7 pm in Waetjen Auditorium at CSU, the next generation of orchestral musicians will tackle that repertory as Liza Grossman leads the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in its annual Music and Its Industry concert, “The Sound of Imagination: Music of Pixar, Disney and Marvel.”

The performance will mark the seventh time that Grossman has collaborated with Case Western Reserve University musicologist Daniel Goldmark in designing and providing narrative context for its midwinter concert. [Read more…]

Preview: Oberlin Opera to present Britten’s Albert Herring

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by Mike Telin

AllCast_BanquetTable“I love Albert Herring because these are my people,” exclaimed Jonathon Field, director of Oberlin Opera Theater, in a recent telephone conversation. “I remember having tea with my grandfather in the little town of Leatherhead in Surrey, England. I know these people inside and out!” On Wednesday, March 12 at 8:00 pm at Hall Auditorium, Oberlin Opera Theater presents the opening night performance of Benjamin Britten’s acclaimed chamber opera Albert Herring.

The opera’s lively tale is filled with comic characters ranging from dully straitlaced to scandalously mischievous. Audience members will find themselves rooting for timid Albert, the most unlikely of heroes, whose secret longing for excitement turns the town upside down. “It’s about knowing you need to make a change in life, and getting that push to actually do it,” Field said, adding that “Britten’s operas always have an oppressed innocent. By the end, Albert sort of tells everybody off and breaks the chains that bind him.”

Composed in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947, Britten’s three-act comic opera is set in the English village of Loxford in 1947. [Read more…]

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