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Oberlin Opera: Field & Larkin on Cimarosa’s ll matrimonio segreto

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by Mike Telin

Domenico Cimarosa’s ll matrimonio segreto (“The Secret Marriage”) was a hit with the public from its premiere at the Imperial Hofburg Theatre in Vienna in 1792. And still today the opera has not lost any of its audience appeal.

On Thursday, March 24 at 8:00 pm at Hall Auditorium, Oberlin Opera Theater will present Cimarosa’s two-act comic opera in a production directed by Jonathon Field, with Christopher Larkin conducting the Oberlin Orchestra. The opera will be sung in Italian with English supertitles. Performances run through Sunday. Tickets are available online.

Larkin has been a regular in the Hall Auditorium pit since 2007 when Field staged Mark Adamo’s Little Women, an opera for which he conducted the premiere in Houston. 

On a recent sunny morning at a popular Oberlin coffee shop, I sat down with Jonathon Field and Christopher Larkin to talk about the opera and the production. This conversation was one of those where you simply turned on the recorder and the two longtime collaborators took it from there.

[Read more…]

The Crossing at CMA: choir & organ, commission & dedication

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Three members of Philadelphia-based chamber choir The Crossing visited the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2017 to perform David Lang’s Lifespan, a piece that could be crudely described as people blowing and whistling at a rock.

“It sounds like the dumbest thing ever, but it’s a really great piece,” Donald Nally, who heads up The Crossing, said during a recent telephone conversation. Lifespan had caught the eye of CMA director of performing arts Tom Welsh, who then wanted to continue the relationship by bringing the entire choir to Cleveland.

It was a tragic event the following year — the passing of a beloved figure in the local music community, Robert G. Schneider, from complications following a car accident — that gave rise to an idea about what the museum and the ensemble could do together, in Schneider’s memory, around his two great passions of choir and organ.

On Friday, March 25 at 7:30 pm in Gartner Auditorium, The Crossing and organist Scott Dettra will give the premiere of Stacy Garrop’s In a House Besieged, commissioned by Welsh and CMA. The program also includes Lansing McLoskey’s The Memory of Rain and Arvo Pärt’s Salve Regina. Tickets are available here.

[Read more…]

Harpist Parker Ramsay brings the Goldberg Variations to Trinity Cathedral

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by Mike Telin

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Aria with Thirty Variations — nicknamed (not by the composer) after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, the harpsichordist who was retained to play them on command for an insomniac patron — have been adapted by performers for many other instruments, most notably for the piano and most famously by Glenn Gould.

Joining a long list of arrangers, Parker Ramsay has transcribed the Variations for the modern pedal harp, an instrument for which he holds a master’s degree from Juilliard, in addition to a degree in history from Cambridge University, plus a master’s in historical performance (organ and harpsichord) and an artist diploma (organ) from Oberlin.

Ramsay returned to his undergraduate haunts to record the Goldbergs in Henry VI’s wonderful chapel at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was the first American to serve as organ scholar. Bach: Goldberg Variations was released in September of 2020 on King’s own label.

On Monday, March 21 at 7:30 pm, Parker Ramsay will perform his arrangement of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations in a Bach Birthday Concert to benefit Music and Art at Trinity Cathedral. Click here for more information. [Read more…]

Céline Iris & Eddie Henderson to perform at the Bop Stop

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by Mike Telin

Every musician understands the important role that mentors play in their development as an artist.

When Cleveland-based jazz vocalist Céline Iris arrived at Oberlin, she said there was “an immediate connection” between her and the legendary trumpet player and faculty member Eddie Henderson. And while the Seattle native graduated last May with degrees in biology and jazz voice, Iris and her mentor have continued to stay in touch.

“A couple of months ago I said, ‘Eddie, I’d really just love to make some music with you. I don’t care where it is — it could even be in your office.’ And he said, ‘Why don’t we just do a gig?’” Iris recalled during a telephone conversation. “That was amazing, and I thought, absolutely, I will make this happen.”

On Tuesday, March 22 at 8:00 pm at the Bop Stop, Eddie Henderson and Céline Iris will be joined by Billy Hart (drums), Roger Friedman (piano), and Eli Naragon (bass) for an evening of fresh takes on classic jazz standards, as well as repertoire that gives a nod to Henderson’s impressive career. The performance will also be livestreamed on the venue’s Facebook page. Click here for tickets and more information. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: 20 minutes with Spanish violinist Francisco Fullana

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by Daniel Hathaway

Born in Palma de Mallorca, raised in Madrid, and having spent a few summers in Aspen where he learned English, violinist Francisco Fullana was turned loose on New York City at the tender age of 16.

He made the most of that experience. Now 32, and one of the friendliest interviewees you can imagine, he told me in a telephone conversation that he was very lucky to have finished high school early so he could spend six months exploring and taking lessons in New York before his Juilliard School audition in March.

“By chance, I met this wonderful lady in Aspen — we were just sitting near each other and talking,” he said. “Susan Beckerman loved classical music, and ended up hosting me for a year in her beautiful house in New York. I had the most incredible time. I went to concerts and opera with her, but most of the time, since I didn’t know anybody, I went to museums, got into photography, and walked around taking in the whole city and falling in love with it. Then I got to Juilliard where they put you in a dorm with 200 freshmen. I was a bit wild for a little while, but it was a great life experience. No regrets!”

Fullana, who is now artist-in-residence with Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, will be featured with Apollo’s Fire this week in two local performances of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Violin Concerto in d, on a program that will be repeated in Weill Hall at New York’s Carnegie Hall. [Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Music Society: Next up —  the Rosamunde String Quartet 

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by Mike Telin

When looking at the biographies of members of the next ensemble to perform on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series, you ask yourself: how do they possibly have the time to take on anything more?

On Tuesday, March 15 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society will present the Rosamunde String Quartet — Noah Bendix-Balgley (1st concertmaster, Berlin Philharmonic), Shanshan Yao (concert violinist and former member of the  New York Philharmonic), Teng Li (principal viola, Los Angeles Philharmonic), and Nathan Vickery (cello, New York. Philharmonic). The program will include works by Beethoven, Barber, and Schubert. Tickets are available online.

Turning on the Zoom camera in Asheville, North Carolina, Bendix-Balgley’s hometown, he and Yao said that their quartet colleagues would soon be arriving to begin rehearsing for their upcoming concerts. “Sometimes scheduling does get a little complicated,” Bendix-Balgley said. “But it always works out,” Yao added. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra: Peter Otto discusses Walton’s Violin Concerto

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by Mike Telin

In 1936 British composer William Walton was faced with a decision: should he write a piece for violinist Joseph Szigeti and clarinetist Benny Goodman, or a concerto for Jascha Heifetz? On December 7, 1939 the famed violinist gave the premiere of Walton’s Violin Concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Artur Rodziński.

On Thursday, March 10 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, Peter Otto will perform Walton’s concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst. The program also includes Adès’s The Exterminating Angel Symphony and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5, and will be repeated on Friday at 11:00 am (no Adès) and Saturday at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

During a recent telephone conversation, the first associate concertmaster said he was surprised to discover that he is only the third soloist to perform the work with the orchestra. “I knew it was Heifetz who played the premiere, then it was Nigel Kennedy and now me, which is kind of unbelievable.” 

Unlike many concertos, which have long orchestral openings, this one introduces the soloist at the very beginning. “Here you just dive right in and present the main theme starting in measure two,” Otto said. “That’s something I really like — and to boot, it’s one of the most beautiful melodies ever written for the violin.”

[Read more…]

Magic Circle Mime to visit Cleveland Orchestra one last time

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by Jarrett Hoffman

“Mimes go silent” doesn’t sound like news exactly, but that’s the case with Magic Circle Mime this year.

The company is built around collaborating with orchestras, so their shows actually contain plenty of sound, if not speech. And by the end of 2022, they’ll call it quits, having completed 43 years of touring.

“We’ve had a great run, and we’re superbly happy that we get to do this kind of ‘goodbye tour,’ particularly in places like Cleveland,” Douglas MacIntyre said during a recent interview. MacIntyre co-founded Magic Circle with Maggie Petersen, and that creative partnership remains the foundation of the company.

On Sunday, March 13 at 3:00 pm at Mandel Hall, the mime duo will join conductor Vinay Parameswaran and The Cleveland Orchestra in “The Listener,” a family program that introduces audiences ages 6+ to the workings of an orchestra and the art of listening. Humor, drama, and dance are all part of the show, as are musical selections by Britten, Bernstein, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Bizet, Mozart, and John Williams, representing genres such as orchestra, opera, ballet, and film. Tickets are available here.

[Read more…]

No Exit presents David & Jerome in live-processed piano works at the Bop Stop

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by Mike Telin

When composer/pianist Jerome Begin was in need of a pianist for a dance project he was working on, the Cleveland native was faced with a conundrum. “Being a pianist, I have never hired a pianist,” he said during a Zoom call.

After speaking to a number of acquaintances asking for recommendations, he decided to contact David Friend. “Jerome sent along some of the pieces and we set a time to meet at Juilliard where he teaches,” Friend recalled during that zoom conversation. “We played through some of the music and immediately everything felt great. And it’s continued to be a really good partnership.”

On Thursday, March 10 at the Bop Stop, David and Jerome will perform Post, a 50-minute set of pieces for solo piano with live processing that explore a different way of creating an uncanny valley-esque reality where human, acoustic and electronic- processed elements interact and overlap in hard-to-define, disorienting ways. The event, presented by No Exit, is free. [Read more…]

Orli Shaham: pianist, educator, curator, radio host, and mother

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by Mike Telin

“I’ve been on kind of a crusade to get the Schumann Concerto programmed as much as possible,” pianist Orli Shaham said during a telephone conversation. It’s a piece that I absolutely adore.” Although she performed the piece many times early in her career, she said that for many years orchestras were not interested in programming the concerto. “Just before the pandemic I was finally scheduled to play it and sure enough, that concert was canceled.”

Lucky for her, that concert was moved to this season, “so I had my chance to play it this past fall.” On Thursday, March 10 at 7:30 pm in Stambaugh Auditorium, Shaham will have another opportunity to play Schumann’s Concerto when she joins the   Youngstown Symphony Orchestra under the direction of André Raphel. The program also includes  Jennifer Higdon’s blue cathedral and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5. Tickets are available online. [Read more…]

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