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Preview: Arts Renaissance Tremont — violinist Jinjoo Cho and pianist HyunSoo Kim to perform on February 9

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by Mike Telin

Cho-&-Kim“What I love about him is that even during a first reading of a piece we already have the gestures,” says violinist Jinjoo Cho about her frequent collaborator, pianist HyunSoo Kim. “We may not have all the notes under the fingers but we are musically on the same page from the very beginning.” Perhaps it’s that certain musical chemistry that has made Cho and Kim audience favorites throughout the Cleveland area.

On Sunday, February 9 beginning at 3:00 pm, Arts Renaissance Tremont presents Jinjoo Cho and HyunSoo Kim in a concert featuring the music of Debussy, Janáček, Tower and Prokofiev at Pilgrim Church in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood.

A native of Seoul, South Korea, Jinjoo Cho earned both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in violin performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music. And she has had considerable success on the competition circuit, including First Prize and Orchestra Award winner of the Buenos Aires International Violin Competition and First Grand Prize and People’s Choice Award winner of the Montréal International Musical Competition. [Read more…]

Preview: Oberlin Artist Recital Series — Imani Winds with pianist Gilbert Kalish on February 9

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by Daniel Hautzinger

Imani2“It’s just badass,” said Imani Winds bassoonist Monica Ellis about Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, which Imani will perform on February 9 in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel as part of the ensemble’s concert on the Artist Recital Series. “It’s this huge iconic piece that’s been pared down to a quintet, which is crazy in and of itself. Behind all that is this crazy cool rhythmic action, melodic action.”

All that “crazy cool rhythmic action” is one thing that connects The Rite of Spring to much of Imani’s repertoire. In addition to Ellis, the quintet consists of oboist Toyin Spellman-Diaz, clarinetist Mariam Adam, flutist Valerie Coleman, and French hornist Jeff Scott. They often perform works from outside the traditional classical repertoire, especially focusing on African-American and Latin composers. “We’re attracted to this music because it’s close to us, it has soulful qualities, it’s ‘jazzy.’ It has a story behind it. Things that have a backbeat, a driving rhythm, are fun to play.”

Sunday’s concert program is in some ways an overview of Imani’s repertoire. [Read more…]

Preview: Tuesday Musical — a conversation with pianist Jeremy Denk

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by Daniel Hautzinger

DENK-JeremyJeremy Denk disproves the theory that all men are created equal. He is a classical pianist who was named Musical America’s 2014 Instrumentalist of the Year, received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2013, writes an engaging blog as well as having been published in The New Yorker and The New York Times Review of Books, wrote a libretto for a new opera, has a contract to pen a memoir for Random House, and received two degrees upon graduating from Oberlin (young, no less), in chemistry and music. Is there anything he can’t do? “I’m not good at washing the dishes,” he said in a phone conversation. “Or many other real life things.”

That self-deprecating humor underlies much of his work, and how he thinks about music. “It really is an important part of my worldview,” he said. Take for example the program he will perform on Feb. 4 at EJ Thomas Hall in Akron, as part of the Tuesday Musical Concert Series. “In this program there is a strong obsession with humor.” It features Mozart’s Piano Sonata K. 533/494, three Ligeti etudes, and Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze and Carnaval. “These are dances but also satires of dances, with an incredible sense of wit and mockery of the Philistines,” he said of Carnaval. [Read more…]

Preview: Oberlin Symposium for Voice Performance and Pedagogy — Jeanette LoVetri advocates vocal health for singers

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by Mike Telin

LoVetri-JeannetteNo matter what your musical genre of choice, whether it’s opera, Broadway, pop, country & western or jazz— you name it — if there’s singing involved, chances are that at some point a singer has either withdrawn, cancelled, or chosen to lip-sync because of voice problems.

Beginning on Friday, January 31 and running through Sunday, February 2, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music will host the 2014 Symposium for Voice Performance and Pedagogy. “The weekend is all about getting together and having conversation about vocal health,” says Lorraine Manz, Associate Professor of Singing and Director of Oberlin’s Otto B. Schoepfle Vocal Arts Center. “We’re very excited to be the host because the region and the state is home to so many outstanding vocal programs that train singers not only in opera but in jazz, musical theatre and Contemporary Commercial Music.”

In addition to Oberlin voice faculty, the Symposium will feature members of the Cleveland Clinic Voice Center and guest clinician Jeanette LoVetri (above). [Read more…]

Preview: Cleveland ChamberMusic Society — a chat with Albers Trio guest pianist Orion Weiss

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by Mike Telin

WEISS-Orion“I love playing in Cleveland,” says 32 year old pianist and native Clevelander Orion Weiss, “it’s always an honor to come home and I’m looking forward to the concert very much.” On Tuesday, February 4 beginning at 7:30 pm in Plymouth Church, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society presents the Albers Trio — violinist Laura, violist Rebecca and cellist Julie — with pianist Orion Weiss. The program includes Beethoven’s Trio in G major Op. 9, No. 1, Martinů’s Trio No. 2, H. 238 and Dvorák’s Piano Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 87. A pre-concert interview hosted by Eric Kisch begins at 6:30 pm.

Since graduating from the Juilliard School in 2004, Orion Weiss has performed with many major North American orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Additionally, Weiss is enthusiastic about playing chamber music. [Read more…]

Preview: Les Délices: “Conversations Galantes” — Visiting the Salons of 18th-Century Paris

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by Daniel Hautzinger

Les-Delices-3The salons of eighteenth century Paris sparkled with witty repartee, political argument, fashionable taste-making, and philosophical deliberation. The rigid hierarchy of the French court disappeared as ranks and genders mingled in exquisite conversation. On Saturday, February 1 at 8:00 pm at Tregoning & Co. Gallery in Cleveland and on Sunday, February 2 at 4:00 pm in Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, French Baroque specialists Les Délices will recreate that environment with their program Conversations Galantes.

“Conversations galantes is the idea of intellectual exchange that happens within the salon,” oboist and Les Délices director Debra Nagy said during a recent telephone conversation. “We’re featuring some of the earliest French quartet repertory, which is based on that idea of conversation, where all the voices are equal and contribute to what’s happening melodically.”

The title of the program comes from a 1743 collection of quartets by Louis-Gabriel Guillemain, some of which will be performed. [Read more…]

Preview: Cleveland Classical Guitar Society — Beijing Guitar Duo at Plymouth on January 25

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by Mike Telin

Beijing-Guitar-DuoFollowing their May of 2011 performance at Classical Guitar Weekend, ClevelandClassical wrote: “The Beijing Guitar Duo’s recital…was a musically stunning lesson in ensemble playing. Like concentric circles, Meng Su and Yameng Wang performed from a common center: articulations, tonal colors, crescendos, decrescendos, whether jointly or individually were perfectly matched…”

On Saturday, January 25 beginning at 7:30 pm in Plymouth Church, the Beijing Guitar Duo returns to Northeast Ohio for a performance on the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s International Series. The concert features music of Domenico Scarlatti, Tan Dun, Giulio Regondi, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Granados and Piazzolla. A pre-concert demonstration of traditional Chinese painting will be given by Jerry Wang.

“We are very excited to be returning to Cleveland,” Meng Su told us by telephone from Baltimore. “We’re especially looking forward to playing Tan Dun’s Eight Memories in Watercolor,’ recalling a visit that she, Yameng Wang and their teacher Manuel Barrueco made to the composer’s home in New York. [Read more…]

Preview: Pianist/Improviser Gabriela Montero to appear on Mixon Masters Series at CIM on January 23

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by Daniel Hathaway

MONTERO-GabrielaGive a baby a toy piano and she’ll almost inevitably attack its keyboard with a fist. Not Gabriela Montero. When the Venezuelan-born pianist was seven months old, she used her fingers to caress the keys of the gift her grandmother had just given her.

That auspicious beginning led to piano lessons and, when she was eight, her concerto debut with José Antonio Abreu’s original National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, when she played Haydn’s D Major Concerto.

Montero will visit Cleveland to perform on the Mixon Hall Masters Series at the Cleveland Institute of Music on Thursday, January 23 at 8:00 pm, when she will play Brahms’s Three Intermezzos, op. 117, Schumann’s Fantasy in C, op. 17, and a series of classical improvisations on themes suggested by the audience. The concert is part of this season’s “Return of the Composer Virtuoso” series.

A talent for improvisation was among Montero’s earliest self discoveries. The pianist, who was not available for an interview, has written, “I have been improvising since my hands first touched the keyboard, but for many years I kept this aspect of my playing secret. [Read more…]

Preview: South Africa-based piano duo featured on Tri-C Classical Piano Series January 26

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by Daniel Hautzinger

Two-PianistsNina Schumann, born in South Africa, met Portuguese-born Luis Magalhães in Texas of all places, where both studied piano under Vladimir Viardo. Now, they’re based in Stellenbosch, South Africa, happily married, perform in a piano duo as TwoPianists, and record on their own label. On January 26 at 2:00 pm, they will share their talents with Cleveland as part of the free Tri-C Classical Piano Series in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium.

When they first encountered each other back in 1990, they would have never predicted this future. “The first time we played together, it was a complete disaster. We vowed we would never play together again,” said Magalhães in a Skype call across an ocean and a hemisphere. “Luis had training that was opposite from mine,” Schumann said. “In the beginning, we couldn’t match at all. But through the years, my playing actually changed: I picked up some of the things that I admired in his playing, and vice versa.”

Now the duo is so attuned to each other that when, in a recent concert, “Luis deliberately played before me on the last chord, I almost fell off my chair,” Schumann said. [Read more…]

Preview: Apollo’s Fire — Fireside Concerts to feature lutenist Ronn McFarlane and soprano Meredith Hall

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by Daniel Hathaway and Mike Telin

McFarlane-Hall“Now winter nights enlarge / The number of their hours; / And clouds their storms discharge / Upon the airy towers. / Let now the chimneys blaze / And cups o’erflow with wine, / Let well-tuned words amaze / With harmony divine.”

Soprano Meredith Hall will begin this week’s Apollo’s Fire Fireside Concerts, “Drive the Cold Winter Away,” with those sentiments by sixteenth-century poet, composer and lutenist Thomas Campion from his song of the same name. “Given the way the winter has been — power outages and such — this theme is a fairly easy one to latch onto,” Hall said in a phone conversation. “What we’re doing is banding together and having an evening celebrating something warm!”

“Campion’s song inspired the program,” said Grammy-nominated lutenist and guest music director Ronn McFarlane, also in a phone conversation. “It’s an Elizabethan and post-Elizabethan show focusing on the English ballad repertoire featuring works by Dowland, Purcell and my favorite composer, Anonymous. Billy [William] Sims will join us on lute and theorbo and Kathie Stewart will play flute and recorder.”

Ballads were the popular music of the Elizabethan period, often circulated as “broadsides” or printed sheets of lyrics that could be fitted to tunes — or families of tunes — that everybody knew and which may have originated as improvisations over bass patterns like the Romanesca. [Read more…]

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