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Ohio Light Opera returns to Freedlander Theatre

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by Mike Telin

For over four decades Ohio Light Opera has enthralled audiences with performances of the complete Gilbert & Sullivan catalog as well as American and European operettas and titles from the Golden Age of musical theater. Performed in the intimate Freedlander Theatre located on the campus of Wooster College, Ohio Light Opera offers fully-staged, entertaining productions in the midst of a charming college-town atmosphere.

Like nearly every performing arts organization in the world — especially those reliant on vocalists — OLO had to “improvise” during the pandemic. Now the company is ready to launch its 2022 season on Saturday, June 18 at 7:30 pm with Rodgers & Hammerstein’s enchanting Cinderella. Tickets are available online. Click here to view a season calendar. [Read more…]

The Sparks Fly Upward at the Maltz

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by Mike Telin

When Cathy Lesser Mansfield was asked to write a piece for the youth theater program at the Jewish Community Center in Cleveland Heights in 1977, little did she know that her creation would mark the beginning of her journey to compose an opera.

“That was around the time that Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was popular. So after we did  ‘Joseph’ there was nothing left, so they commissioned young people to write some things,” Mansfield recalled during a Zoom conversation from her office at the Case Western Reserve School of Law where she is a senior instructor. “So I wrote this 45-minute piece with a guitar, piano, and little ensemble. That was The Job Story.”

On Thursday, June 9 at 7:30 pm, The Sparks Fly Upward will receive its Cleveland premiere at the Maltz Performing Arts Center. [Read more…]

ENCORE Festival of Music and Ideas: It’s all about “Storytelling” 

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by Mike Telin

“Everyone has a story, and we are all storytellers,” ENCORE Chamber Music founder and artistic director Jinjoo Cho noted during a telephone conversation. “Storytelling is our craft, it’s at the core of everything we do.”

On Friday, June 10, at 7:00 pm, the ENCORE Festival of Music and Ideas will launch its 7th season with a program titled “Tales of War & Grief.” The concert features music by Schubert, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Matthijs van Dijk, Radiohead and Led Zeppelin performed by the Signum Quartet — Florian Donderer & Annette Walther (violins), Xandi van Dijk (viola), and Thomas Schmitz (cello).

At 6:00 pm, the Cologne, Germany-based musicians will become panelists to discuss war, grief, and how current events are impacting our mental health around the world. [Read more…]

RE:Sound 2022— “New Music” for everyone

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by Mike Telin

Since its founding, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project (CUSP) has engaged the Northeast Ohio community by championing the creation and performance of new music. One of the ways it does that is through its annual Re:Sound Festival of New and Experimental Music.

Judging from the stellar lineup of musicians the organizers have assembled, the 2022 edition of Re:Sound — which runs from June 9 through June 12 — promises to once again deliver a musically adventurous experience.

“More than ever the phrase ‘new music’ is becoming a broad umbrella term that encapsulates all kinds of styles. So we wanted this year’s festival to reflect that as best as we could.” CUSP’s managing director Stephen Haluska (above) said during a recent Zoom call. [Read more…]

Stephanie Manning named as Rubin Institute Fellow for 2022

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by Daniel Hathaway

Third-year Oberlin bassoon major Stephanie Manning is among 18 aspiring music writers to be named Fellows of the Fifth Biennial Stephen and Cynthia Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, which will convene at the San Francisco Conservatory from June 16-20.

Founded at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 2011 by book publishing executive Stephen Rubin, the Institute is designed to further the art and craft of critical writing about music. Keynote addresses are given by the nation’s top music critics and public concerts are reviewed by the fellows and critiqued by professional journalists in private workshops.

The Institute will culminate in the awarding of the $10,000 Rubin Prize in Music Criticism to the fellow who demonstrates exceptional promise in music criticism. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland 2022 —
“The Revelry We Need”

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by Donald Rosenberg

This essay was written as an overview of ChamberFest’s tenth season. It is reposted with the permission of the author and ChamberFest Cleveland.

If you’re reading these words, you don’t have to be convinced that chamber music is a gift — anytime, anywhere. But we should be especially grateful this year, when we have cravings to connect (reconnect?) on so many levels. The pandemic has continued to disrupt our lives. A senseless war has placed the world at risk. So why chamber music? And why now? [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland
celebrates X in 2022

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by Mike Telin

Ten years ago when ChamberFest Cleveland launched its first festival with the theme “Big Bang,” the organizers envisioned that it would become a world-class festival. Since then, the Festival’s programming has explored themes such as “(IT’S) About Time,” “Crossing Borders,” “Tales and Legends,” “Cycles: Phases!” “In Search of Freedom,” “Under the Influence,” and most recently “Together Again.” And over the past decade ChamberFest Cleveland has indeed become world-class. [Read more…]

Choral Arts Cleveland to premiere George Bristow’s Mass in C

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by Daniel Hathaway

After writing his doctoral dissertation for the University of Iowa on the subject of American composer George Frederick Bristow’s Mass in C, CSU’s director of choirs Brian Bailey decided that this previously unperformed work needed a full, formal premiere as well as the critical edition he created for the degree.

He scheduled that performance at Fairmount Presbyterian Church for mid-March of 2020 with Choral Arts Cleveland, the avocational chorus he has conducted since taking the position over from Martin Kessler. As we now know, due to the advent of COVID-19, most live performances began falling like dominoes around that time. [Read more…]

Cellists swarm to Cleveland for Lev Aronson Festival, June 6-12

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Aronson Posterby Daniel Hathaway

If you see a sudden influx of cello cases on Cleveland streets and sidewalks this week, it’s because the Lev Aronson Cello Festival, usually held in Dallas, is convening here for a packed schedule of events that will mainly interest those who play the violoncello, but many of which will appeal to a wider audience as well.

The brainchild of founding artistic director and Cleveland Orchestra cellist Brian Thornton, the Festival honors his teacher, Holocaust survivor Lev Aronson, who played principal with the Dallas Symphony. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra: an MLK Celebration in June

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by Jarrett Hoffman

A surge of coronavirus in January forced The Cleveland Orchestra to postpone its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Concert. Traditionally held around the time of MLK Day, this year the concert will take place not long from Juneteenth.

The Orchestra will honor Dr. King on Saturday, June 4 at 7:00 pm at Mandel Concert Hall with a program of music by several Black composers — Dolores White, Mary D. Watkins, Carlos Simon, Brian Raphael Nabors, William Grant Still, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and John Rosamond Johnson — as well as music in the African American spiritual tradition. [Read more…]

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