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Cleveland Pops kicks off season with tenor Daniel Emmet 

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by Mike Telin

If you’re a fan of talent shows, you probably remember Daniel Emmet as the opera singer who accepted the “impossible challenge” delivered by Simon Cowell during Season 13 of America’s Got Talent.

Since those appearances in 2018, Emmet has used his vocal prowess to carve out a notable career for himself. His single “True Reflection” debuted at #1 on the iTunes Classical Chart and he’s headlined his own show, “All That I Am,” at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas — his list of musical accomplishments goes on.

The one thing Emmet has never done is perform in Cleveland. That will change on  Saturday, November 5 at 8:00 pm when he joins Carl Topilow and the Cleveland Pops Orchestra for their season-opening concert at Severance Music Center. Tickets are  available online.

Answering his phone in Las Vegas, the city he has called home since he was in his mid-teens, Emmet’s enthusiasm about Saturday’s concert was palpable. [Read more…]

No Exit to host Genkin Philharmonic

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by Mike Telin

No Exit’s season-opening trifecta of concerts concludes on Friday, November 4 at 8:00 pm at the Bop Stop with the Genkin Philharmonic, a ten-piece electroacoustic chamber ensemble based in Buffalo. The concert is free.

Founded in 2000 by trumpeter Jon Nelson, the group was originally conceived as a class at the University at Buffalo — a class that would provide an opportunity to study and perform contemporary music that draws on multiple genres as well as improvisation. Today the Genkin draws its membership from a pool of musicians including UB Faculty and alumni, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the Hallwalls Arts Collective.

What makes the Genkin Philharmonic distinct from most contemporary music ensembles is what they play. Their repertoire includes arrangements that preserve the technical virtuosity of music by the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa, the creation of original works by living composers, and arrangements of works from the classical canon that remain faithful to the composers’ scores.

“We’re kind of different from everything else out there,” Nelson said during a telephone conversation. [Read more…]

Vijay Iyer Trio at Youngstown State [CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS]

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by Mike Telin

Pianist and composer Vijay Iyer enjoys a multifaceted musical career. The list of people with whom he has collaborated reads like a who’s who in the world of jazz and classical music. His list of awards includes a MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, and a United States Artist Fellowship.

Iyer has released twenty-four albums of his music, most recently UnEasy (ECM Records, 2021), a trio session with drummer Tyshawn Sorey and bassist Linda May Han Oh, and was named the 2022 Jazz Pianist of the Year by the Jazz Journalist Association.

On Friday November 4 at 7:30 pm the Vijay Iyer Trio will perform in the Chestnut Room of Youngstown State University’s  Kilcawley Center as part of YSU’s Pipino Performing Art Series. Click here for tickets.

I caught up with Iyer by telephone and began by asking him about his latest Trio recording, the first since 2015. [Read more…]

Thomas Ospital to perform on both Trinity Cathedral organs Nov. 1

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by Daniel Hathaway

When the internationally famous organist and composer Jean Guillou ended his 52-year-long run as tenured organist at the Church of St.-Eustache in Paris in 2015, two successors were named, including Thomas Ospital, who was 20 at the time.

“It’s never simple to follow such a musician as Guillou,” Ospital said in a telephone conversation from Tulsa, where he was due to play a recital on Friday evening. “You have the choice between being yourself or doing something new. I only met him twice, which made it easier.”

Ospital, who spent six months in New Orleans when he was 21 and made regular concert tours until COVID arrived, will play a free recital at Trinity Cathedral on Tuesday evening, November 1 at 7:30 pm. His program, co-sponsored by Music and Art at Trinity and the Cleveland chapter of the American Guild of Organists, includes works by Buxtehude and J.S. Bach on the 1977 Flentrop Orgelbouw instrument of Dutch Baroque design, and music by Ravel, Duruflé and Franck on the Aeolian-Skinner organ in the American romantic style rebuilt by Muller in 2022. [Read more…]

Sords set to resume touring after long hiatus

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by Daniel Hathaway

Before the novel coronavirus blew into the music world in 2020, bringing with it what he calls “the Great Silence,” violinist Andrew Sords was among the busiest touring soloists and chamber musicians in the industry. He reckons that he spent nearly 200 days on the road in 2019, compared to 40 this year.

This Saturday, October 29 at 7:00 pm at the Federated Church in Chagrin Falls, Sords will join colleagues Mari Sato, violin, Eric Wong, viola, John Walz, cello, and Elizabeth DeMio, piano, in works by Brahms, Dvořák, and Rachmaninoff. Dvořák’s Piano Quintet is at the center of the program, a work Sords classifies as “a desert island piece” that should become more of a special undertaking for its performers, rather than just a standard repertory item. “It’s an epic project,” Sords said. “But rehearsing it doesn’t even seem like work.”

That’s a healthy attitude Andrew Sords brings to practicing and rehearsing in general. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland:
“Echoes from the Valley”

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by Mike Telin

Whenever three adventurous musicians share a stage, the programming possibilities are endless. On Friday, November 4 at 7:30 pm at the Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church, ChamberFest Cleveland will present soprano Amanda Powell, clarinetist Franklin Cohen, and pianist Peter Takács in “Echoes from the Valley,” a program of global folk songs. Tickets are available online.

“We’ve programmed concerts like this before during ChamberFest,” Cohen said during a recent telephone conversation. “I’ve admired Amanda’s talent for years. I’ve heard her with Apollo’s Fire and at different clubs and her talent is not confined to one little box. Everyone loves her work, and she’s been a very important part of the ChamberFest family for a number of years.” 

Powell will be featured in Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (“The Shepherd on the Rock”) and Ravel’s Cinq melodies populaires grecques. The trio will also present an exploration of international folk songs — from the Appalachian Mountains to the Greek seaside to a classical Arabic muwashshah — in arrangements by Dave Morgan, as well as Two Ladino Songs arranged by Paul Ferguson. “The arrangements are fantastic and we’re looking forward to playing them,” Cohen said. 

[Read more…]

No Exit kicks off season 
with a quartet of events

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by Mike Telin

During the past couple of years, No Exit has taken the online concert format to a new level. As ClevelandClassical.com’s Jarrett Hoffman noted: “Plenty of pre-recorded concerts have offered audiences some sort of new and compelling experience. But few organizations have mined that format with as much joy and silliness — and in general, personality — as Cleveland’s new music ensemble No Exit.”

Keeping that tradition alive, the ensemble chose to open their 2022-23 season with an online concert in collaboration with St. Paul-based Zeitgeist. “As far as the presentation goes it’s probably the best online concert we’ve ever done,” No Exit artistic director Timothy Beyer said during a recent telephone conversation.

The playlist includes Stephen Dembski’s Alta, Per Nørgård’s Night Descending, and the world premiere of Nasim Khorrassani’s Primary Call. That concert, released last week, is available for viewing on No Exit’s website. Click here to watch. 

Beyer noted that beginning this week, the ensemble will put on its presenter hat. “I’m very excited about the next three events, because each one will be amazing. I know we’re always saying that, but it’s really true.” 

[Read more…]

Yolanda Kondonassis:
Five Minutes for Earth
at Cleveland Museum of Art

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by Mike Telin

“When we see an idea expressed in the language of art, our sensory reactions often open the heart and mind to interaction in ways that mere facts may not,” writes Yolanda Kondonassis, who is not only a celebrated harpist but also the founder and director of the Earth at Heart foundation. “Action is the goal, but a visceral call to engagement can be the catalyst. There is not a minute to lose in our battle to protect the future of our planet, and an inspired commitment can make all the difference.”

On her latest recording, Five Minutes for Earth, Kondonassis asked fifteen composers to write five-minute works for solo harp that “expressed our Earth in some condition or atmosphere.”

Released in April 2022 on Azica Records, the album features music by Jocelyn C. Chambers, Chen Yi, Michael Daugherty, Daniel Dorff, Reena Esmail, Keith Fitch, Patrick Harlin, Stephen Hartke, Nathaniel Heyder, Takuma Itoh, Aaron Jay Kernis, Philip Maneval, Máximo Diego Pujol, Gary Schocker, Arturo Sandoval, and Zhou Long.

On Sunday, October 23 at 7:00 pm at Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium, Kondonassis will present a program that includes the world-premiere live performances of all fifteen works along with recently composed pieces, poetry, and visual art. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

Tuesday Musical: Scottish Chamber Orchestra to feature Anna Clyne’s Stride on Oct. 20 

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by Mike Telin

On Thursday, October 20 at 7:30 pm, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Maxim Emelyanychev, will kick off Tuesday Musical’s 2022 season at E.J. Thomas Hall. The program features Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 (“Scottish”) and Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with Nicola Benedetti as soloist. The performance is part of the Orchestra’s current U.S. tour.

A Concert Conversation between local theater aficionado Ian Haberman and Scottish Chamber Orchestra CEO Gavin Reid will begin at 6:45 pm in EJ’s Flying Balcony Club. Complimentary refreshments and wine will be provided. Tickets are available online.

Thursday’s program also includes Anna Clyne’s Stride, which is inspired by Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in c (“Pathétique”). “I was fortunate to be the SCO’s associate composer from 2019 until 2022,” Clyne said during a recent telephone conversation. “During that time I wrote several commissions for them, one of which was Stride, so I’m very happy they picked it up for their U.S. tour.”

An eleven-minute work for string orchestra, Stride was a co-commission by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. [Read more…]

From Trafalgar Square to Shaker Square: CCMS presents St. Martin’s Chamber Ensemble

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by Daniel Hathaway

On Tuesday, October 18, London’s Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble will return to the Cleveland Chamber Music Series at Plymouth Church in Shaker Square to play works by Purcell, Brahms, and Enesco.

Not many musical groups are so closely associated in spirit and substance with a building as is the Academy of St. Martin with the grand parish church built to the plans of architect James Gibbs in 1720.

Only the second church to occupy its central London site on Trafalgar Square, St. Martin’s, inspired by Greek and Roman temples, established a style that was widely applied to ecclesiastical buildings during the restoration of the City churches after the Great Fire of 1666 by such architects as Christopher Wren. And made its mark on American Protestant church buildings like Plymouth UCC in Shaker Heights (below).

St. Martin’s has shared its real estate with the monument to Admiral Horatio Nelson after the Battle of Trafalgar in 1808, with the National Gallery of Art, completed in 1838, and until their eviction at the turn of the 21st century, with a flock of 35,000 feral pigeons, not to mention protesters demonstrating en masse for multiple causes (like the 100,000 Pakistanis who poured into Trafalgar Square one Sunday in the 1970s when I decided to visit St. Martin’s for the first time).

Determined to serve as a cultural center as well as an organization dedicated to religious, societal, and justice issues, St. Martin’s became a thoroughly modern Anglican organization in the mid-20th century. As its website notes, “ From London’s first free lending library to the first religious broadcast, St. Martin’s has broken new ground in defining what it means to be a church.” [Read more…]

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