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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…]

Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival: a guitarist, a harpist, two dogs & a composer

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by Jarrett Hoffman

One by one the guest list for a recent Zoom conversation grew, until it included — in order of appearance — a guitarist and a harpist, two dogs, and a composer.

I knew about the instrumentalists going in. CIM guitar department co-head Colin Davin was staying at the home of his friend and collaborator Emily Levin, principal harp of the Dallas Symphony. So it would only make sense to chat with them together about their Davin-Levin Duo program coming up on Friday, June 3 at 7:30 pm at CIM’s Kulas Hall, presented as part of the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival (tickets here). [Read more…]

Classical Guitar Festival returns coupled with Stroud Competition: a conversation with Armin Kelly

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by Daniel Hathaway

When COVID-19 crashed the party in March of 2020, it arrived just as musical organizations were putting final touches on their summer festival plans.

The famously disruptive pathogen caused the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival to make major alterations in its annual event at the Cleveland Institute of Music that June. What may look like the most practical solution — taking a whole festival online — poses problems of its own.

“Early on, and learning on the spot, we resorted to videos,” founder and artistic director Armin Kelly said during a recent phone conversation. “We were proud of what we were able to do on such short notice, but nothing beats the camaraderie of a live performance.” [Read more…]

Art Song Festival rises again
from May 23-28 at CIM 

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by Daniel Hathaway

It’s been rough going for Art Song Festival for the past two years. Founder George Vassos passed away after a long teaching and entrepreneurial career in February of 2020, and although detailed plans were in place to hold the festival that year, concerns about the well-documented spread of COVID via aerosols among singers dictated a postponement.

“It feels like such a gift that the Art Song Festival is actually happening,” director Dean Southern said in a recent phone conversation. “It’s also time for reflection, and I find myself getting to a really reflective place.

“More than two years ago, George, Tamara Wilson, and Warren Jones were planning the 2020 Festival, The Cleveland Orchestra was going to do Otello, and we worked it out so that Tamara could do both, then that all got canceled. We postponed to 2021, when it all got canceled again. So it feels quite amazing that it’s all going to come back this year. For me, spring and Art Song Festival just go together.” [Read more…]

Soprano Tamara Wilson to open Cleveland Art Song Festival

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by Mike Telin

The last time Tamara Wilson was in town, she was here to perform the title role of Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos with The Cleveland Orchestra. Next week the critically acclaimed soprano will open the Cleveland Art Song Festival with a recital on Monday, May 23 at 8:00 pm in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Assisted by pianist Warren Jones, the program, titled “Enchantment,” includes works by Debussy, Severac, Chausson, Han, Handel, Strauss, and Grieg, along with the world premiere of Evan Snyder’s Tiffandra’s Spellbook. Tickets are available online.

In addition to Monday’s recital, Wilson will present master classes on Friday, May 27 at 10:30 am and 3:00 pm in Mixon Hall. And you can also catch her down the street at Severance Music Center where she will be singing the role of Desdemona in The Cleveland Orchestra’s concert performances of Verdi’s Otello on May 21, 26, and 29.

Like many, the long absence of live performances due to the coronavirus caused Wilson to re-examine things, one of which was a program she had created for a performance that was postponed.

“I was looking at it and I thought, you know what, I don’t want to sing these songs anymore,” Wilson said during a recent telephone conversation. “So I talked to Warren and said, can we just build a whole new program? And he said sure.” [Read more…]

Fourth time’s the charm: Blue Streak celebrates CIM

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Any graph tracking cases of coronavirus is a looping one: up, down, up, down. So if the timing is just unlucky enough, the same program could potentially be postponed once, twice, thrice…

That hypothetical has been a reality for the Blue Streak Ensemble. The group aimed to celebrate the Cleveland Institute of Music’s centennial in 2020 with a set of three programs that would include, in part, music by composers connected to CIM. But new variants, new spikes, and rescheduled student recitals have meant cycling through one date after another.

So composer and Blue Streak director Margaret Brouwer had a proclamation to make during our recent conversation on Zoom. “We’re giving these concerts no matter what!” she said with a laugh. “Even if we have to stand in the street and play.”

[Read more…]

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