by Daniel Hathaway
Well-known in the last decade and a half for its intimate Salons and Garden concerts, M.U.S.i.C. — Stars in the Classics — will perform on a wider stage this weekend with a Spring Festival of Music from Latin and South America on Sunday afternoon, March 26 at 3:30 pm at the Church of the Western Reserve in Pepper Pike. Tickets are available here, and a reception will follow the concert.
I spoke with artistic director Jodi Kanter by telephone to find out more about this weekend’s program. The former fiber artist’s life and career changed dramatically fifteen years ago when a sideline turned into something of an obsession. “Peter Takács got me started. We were friends, and he mentioned that he wanted to play chamber music in people’s homes. I knew people with large homes so I started helping him,” she said. Then the Oberlin piano professor immersed himself in recording Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas.
“I kept the program going and kept meeting musicians who wanted to perform. Then, people wanted to make donations, so I decided to start a non-profit with the help of students in the Case Law School who needed experience in that area.”
Kanter also gave up her art studio after forty years, during which she fulfilled commissions from all over the country. “I needed something different. It became repetitive and it wasn’t new anymore.” Such activities as fundraising, promotion, and program design were new. “My art school background served me well.” she said.
One of the unique offerings of crossover music in Northeast Ohio is the Canton Symphony Orchestra’s Divergent Sounds. The series pairs select bands and singer-songwriters from the area with their own hand-picked group of instruments from the Orchestra. Then arranger Kevin Martinez creates new chamber-ensemble versions of their songs to be performed at Zimmermann Symphony Center.
You know the song from Rent that asks how to measure a year of life? Well, steering clear of doing the math for “525,600 minutes” times 26, how do you measure a career lasting over a quarter-century?
Since winning first prize at the 2021 Cleveland International Piano Competition and 3rd Prize at XVIII International Chopin Piano Competition, as well as the special award for the best concerto performance, Spanish pianist Martín García García’s world has — in his words — changed drastically.
On Saturday, March 4 at 8:00 pm, at SPACES, No Exit Presents will host harpist Stephan Haluska in a free concert that will include music by Carol Finer, Yasunao Tone, Rhodri Davies, and Stephan Haluska.
Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites recounts a fictionalized version of the real-life story of the Martyrs of Compiègne, a group of Carmelite nuns who, during the closing days of the Reign of Terror, were guillotined in Paris for refusing to renounce their vocation.
On Thursday, February 23 at 7pm, the Tri-C Classical Piano Series will deviate from its usual pattern of presenting solo pianists to welcome the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine to the stage of its Metropolitan Campus.