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23rd Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival Opens at CIM Next Weekend (June 1-4)

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by Daniel Hathaway

When I telephoned Armin Kelly, founder and artistic director of the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival, to hear details of their 23rd trip around the Sun from June 1-4 at the Cleveland Institute of Music, he was deep into proofreading the 40-page festival program — and worrying as all presenters of international artists do about what could possibly happen to his best-laid plans this year.

A sudden resurgence of COVID? A visa snafu? “The volcanic eruption in Mexico scares me — could that disrupt international flights? Ah, the joys and white knuckles of presenting live concerts,” Kelly mused. He added one of the recurring nightmares of an English literature major to the list: he’s just sure there’s a typo or misspelling lurking somewhere undetected in a corner of the program book, only to reveal itself once hundreds of copies have been printed.

Casting those cares aside, Kelly said he’s very proud of that book and its “amazing” program notes by Tom Poore. “His musical insights and human interest comments have been an important part of the festival since the beginning.”

Another thing he’s proud of is the inclusion of the James Stroud International Youth Competition in the Festival for the fourth time. The final round will be held live for the first time on Sunday evening of the festival weekend. [Read more…]

Local 4 Music Fund’s She Scores: Round Three

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by Mike Telin

When the Institute for Composer Diversity analyzed the 2019-20 seasons of 120 American orchestras, it found that just eight percent of all pieces performed were composed by women. For Amber Rogers, artistic director of the Local 4 Music Fund, that statistic was a call for action. “The idea of concerts featuring female composers isn’t new, but I didn’t see anything quite like this in Cleveland,” Rogers told ClevelandClassical.com’s Stephanie Manning in June of 2021.

On June 2 and 3 at 7:00 pm and June 4 at 4:00 pm at Cleveland State University’s Drinko Hall, She Scores 2023 will feature nineteen compositions by fourteen composers. Emily Laurance will present a pre-concert lecture 45 minutes prior to each free performance. Visit our Concert Listings page for composer names, composition titles, and performers.

“We are adding one piece to the June 3rd concert to honor the late composer Dolores White,” Rogers said during a recent telephone conversation. “Eric Charnofsky met with Dolores’s daughter Dianna and she gave him a couple of scores to pick from. We talked about them and looked at our instrumentation, and Eric and Drew Hosler are doing a piece for saxophone and piano.”

[Read more…]

Rocky River Chamber Music Society goes all-Stravinsky for season closer

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Clarinetist Daniel McKelway and trumpeter Amanda Bekeny are familiar collaborators in a sense. Both are on the board of the Rocky River Chamber Music Society and both are frequent performers on the series — although it has never actually brought them face-to-face, instrument-to-instrument, bell-to-bell, onstage together at the same time for the same piece. Something they decided they ought to change.

To be fair, there isn’t a whole lot of music that could bring them together. But there is a pair of beloved pieces with unusual, colorful instrumentations, both by the same composer. “I don’t know which of us thought of it first, but there was an immediate idea of, ‘Wait a minute — Stravinsky,’” McKelway said during a recent interview.

They were thinking in particular of the Octet, which combines woodwinds and brass, and L’Histoire du Soldat (“Soldier’s Tale”), which brings together woodwinds, brass, strings, and percussion — plus narrator, telling the story of a soldier who strikes an ill-advised bargain with the devil.

Those two pieces and those two people — L’Histoire, the Octet, McKelway, and Bekeny — form the nucleus of the Rocky River Chamber Music Society’s season-ending concert, which will take place on Monday, May 15 at 7:30 pm at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church. Attendance is free, and the concert will also be livestreamed. [Read more…]

No Exit presents andPlay

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This article is posted with the permission of No Exit

andPlay is the New York City-based duo of Maya Bennardo (violin) and Hannah Levinson (viola), who first met as students at Oberlin Conservatory. The two musician-educators are committed to expanding the existing violin/viola repertoire by commissioning new works (over 40 to date) and actively collaborating with living artists. On Thursday, May 11 at 7:00 pm the duo will present their latest project Translucent Harmonies at SPACES. Th concert is free

We caught up with andPlay to discuss past and present projects, including Translucent Harmonies, their immersive No Exit Presents concert program of two complementary works composed in just intonation. [Read more…]

Orlando Watson to host United in Song at Severance

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by Mike Telin

“I’m working in Pittsburgh now, but I will forever be a Clevelander,” spoken word poet Orlando Watson said in a telephone conversation. “And coming home to partner with The Cleveland Orchestra and to be able to create in that glorious hall that has been around since 1931, is quite an honor.”

On Saturday, May 13 at 2:00 pm at Severance Music Center, Watson will host United In Song. The afternoon of vocal performances celebrates the rich diversity of the Greater Cleveland community. Performing ensembles include the  Humbly Submitted Gospel Chorus, Andy Andino and Voces Hispanas, Tri-C Vocal Arts Academy, The Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Chorus, and ensembles from Cleveland’s immigrant community. The event is free.

[Read more…]

The Girl of the Golden West: A conversation with tenor Limmie Pulliam

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by Mike Telin

Perhaps no seven-year period in history epitomizes the American dream more than that of the California Gold Rush. Between 1848 and 1855 approximately 300,000 people made their way west in search of the fortunes that were there for the taking in the California goldfields.

Giacomo Puccini immortalized that period of U.S. history in his three-act opera, La Fanciulla del West. Based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco, the opera centers around Minnie, the owner of the Polka saloon, her love interest, the bandit Dick Johnson, and the jealous suitor, sheriff Jack Rance.

On Sunday, May 14 at 3:00 pm at Severance Music Center, Franz Welser-Möst will lead the first of three performances of Puccini’s Girl of the Golden West. Sung in Italian with English subtitles, the cast features soprano Emily Magee as Minnie, bass Roman Burdenko as Jack, and tenor Limmie Pulliam as Dick, along with a horde of gold miners. Performances continue at 7:30 pm on Wednesday May 17 and Saturday May 20. Tickets are available online. The opera is presented as part of The Orchestra’s American Dream Festival.

[Read more…]

Alisa Weilerstein talks about FRAGMENTS

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by Mike Telin

When faced with the realities of the pandemic, like many cellists, Alisa Weilerstein found refuge on social media, streaming movements of Bach’s cello suites. “I just want to have a kind of outpouring of music, of thoughts, and everything else,” she told The New York Times in 2020. “Right now all I really want to do is give.”

Little did she know that spending time with her thoughts would eventually lead to the creation of FRAGMENTS. The multi-year project weaves together movements of Bach’s six solo cello suites with 27 newly commissioned works.

On Thursday, May 11 at Severance Music Center Weilerstein will present FRAGMENTS 1, in which Bach’s first cello suite will be combined with selections from the commissioned pieces. The hour-long program is enhanced by theatrical elements including responsive lighting and set designs.

The music will be performed without pause and without printed programs. Following the performance, audiences can attend a post-concert discussion with Weilerstein and the FRAGMENTS creative team. Tickets are available online. The evening is presented as part of The Cleveland Orchestra’s American Dream Festival.

[Read more…]

Music of American history with the Parma Symphony: Lincoln Portrait & Gettysburg

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by Jarrett Hoffman

There are several stirring moments in Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, a piece that combines music with excerpts of oratory by Abraham Lincoln. One of those moments comes about two-thirds of the way through, when a rousing crescendo in the percussion follows a select few lines from the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates:

It is the eternal struggle between two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world. It is the same spirit that says, ‘You toil and work and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.’ No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation, and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra: Violinist Marina Ziegler plays Sibelius

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by Mike Telin

Performing a concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra is an honor and a moment to cherish. “I have fun playing Sibelius,” violinist Marina Ziegler said, “I’m just happy to play it with COYO because I get to do it with all of my friends. And it will be a nice way to end the year. My first piece with COYO was the Sibelius Second Symphony, so I feel like I’ve come full circle.”

On May 5 at 8:00 pm at Severance Music Center, the Copley High School senior will play the Sibelius concerto with COYO under the direction of Daniel Reith. The program also includes Schwerrtsik’s Herr K. entdeckt Amerika and Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3. Tickets are available online.

Ziegler began her violin studies at the age of five at the Sato Center for Suzuki Studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Her teachers have included Stephen Sims, Isabel Trautwein, and Eugenia Poustyreva. She currently studies violin with David Bowlin at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. [Read more…]

Allison Loggins-Hull is named next Cleveland Orchestra Composer Fellow

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by Mike Telin

When Allison Loggins-Hull’s manager reached out to say that The Cleveland Orchestra was curious to see some of her scores, the composer/flutist thought they might be interested in programming some of her music  in the future. Then, several weeks later, when he called back and asked Loggins-Hull if she was interested in being the Orchestra’s Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow, at first she didn’t take him seriously.

“I thought ‘Okay, Greg, what do you really want?’ But when he said no, this is real,  I was like wow, because this was not something that I saw coming.”

On Thursday, May 4 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in the world premiere of Loggins-Hull’s Can You See? The concert will also include Barber’s Cello Concerto with Alisa Weilerstein as soloist and the revised 1947 version of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4. The program will be repeated on Saturday at 8 pm. Tickets are available online.

One hour before each performance, a Prelude program in Reinberger Chamber Hall curated by Loggins-Hull will feature excerpts from her full-length program Honoring Black Composers, which will be presented at Karamu House on May 21.

[Read more…]

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