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Mark Padmore to join Uchida for Lieder recital in Reinberger

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by Daniel Hathaway

British tenor Mark Padmore was getting ready for a Cleveland concert in 2020 — his first visit since 1985 — when the novel coronavirus showed up with other plans. His recital of works by Beethoven and Schubert with pianist Mitsuko Uchida, part of a North American tour, got put on ice and will finally take place in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance Music Center on Sunday, March 6 at 3:00 pm.

Born in London and educated at King’s College, Cambridge, Padmore has developed an international career in opera, concert, and recital repertoire. Among the highlights are his performances as Evangelist in J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John Passions with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Simon Rattle, staged by Peter Sellars.

I spoke to Padmore by telephone last week in New York soon after he arrived from London.

Daniel Hathaway: How does it feel to be traveling again after a two-year hiatus?

Mark Padmore: It’s been a long time getting the tour rescheduled. But it’s lovely. I’ve got some great friends in the U.S. so to see them again has been very special. [Read more…]

Cleveland Museum of Art
to present Wu Wei, sheng

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Wu Wei, the Chinese-born, German-based virtuoso of the free reed instrument known as the sheng, discovered the instrument in, of all places, an animated film.

“It told a famous Chinese story about someone who cannot really play this instrument,” he said during a recent interview on Zoom. “There is a queen who wants to have 300 sheng players perform together. So sheng players are requested, and one volunteer decides to make a fake sheng and just gesture with his body, as if he’s playing,” Wu Wei said, swaying back and forth on camera to demonstrate.

Rest assured, when a man carrying a sheng enters the stage of Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Friday, March 11 at 7:30 pm, he will be someone who knows a thing or two about how to play it.

An internationally-renowned sheng virtuoso who teaches at the Shanghai Conservatory, Wu Wei is also considered the instrument’s leading avant-garde figure, having dedicated a significant portion of his career to expanding its repertoire through arranging, commissioning, and composing.

[Read more…]

Quire Cleveland: Jay White talks about Demantius’ Passion music

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by Daniel Hathaway

When you’re looking for neglected music to program, it’s helpful to have friends with wide-ranging tastes who are cleaning out overflowing collections of recordings. That’s how Quire Cleveland artistic director Jay White stumbled across a major work by the 17th-century Bohemian composer Christoph Demantius.

“My spouse and I were visiting a friend who is an early musician in Texas,” White said in a recent telephone conversation. “He and his partner, who passed away recently, had collected hundreds of recordings during their 60 years together, and he was painstakingly going through them to see what he wanted to keep. The three of us were able to whittle it down quite a bit, but we had to look at every single recording, because there were some real treasures.

“I looked at this one recording and said, ‘Wait a minute. A St. John Passion I’ve never heard of before?’ About a month later, I found the score and decided that Quire needed to perform it.”

Perform it they will, at free concerts in three historic Catholic churches whose parishes were created in the last years of the 19th century by immigrants from Eastern Europe: St. John Cantius, established by Poles (Friday, March 4), St. Vitus, founded by Slovenians (Saturday, March 5), and St. Elizabeth of Hungary, organized by Hungarians (Sunday, March 6). [Read more…]

Duo Noire to make Cleveland Classical Guitar Society Debut

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by Mike Telin

Although they wouldn’t meet for some time, Thomas Flippin and Christopher Mallett long shared a musical trajectory.

They both grew up in Southern California and were steeped in their local punk rock scenes, playing in bands during high school. They both found their way to the classical guitar in their late teens. They both did their undergraduate studies in the Midwest — Flippin at the University of Chicago and Mallett at Oberlin Conservatory — and they both went on to study at Yale University, becoming the first two African American guitarists to be admitted into the program. Yale was also where they formed Duo Noire, taking the name of the French term for both “black” and “quarter note.”

On Saturday, March 5 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church, the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society will present Duo Noire in a program that explores the many ways music expresses the essence of place. Tickets are available online. [Read more…]

Harlem Quartet at Tuesday Musical:
“Los hermanos” López-Gavilán reunited

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Among the wide-ranging works of pianist and composer Aldo López-Gavilán is one that was inspired by the relationship between him and his brother, violinist and Harlem Quartet founder Ilmar López-Gavilán.

As Ilmar said during a recent telephone call, “This piece speaks to the moments that we did not have together.”

On Tuesday, March 1 at 7:30 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall, Tuesday Musical will present a program titled “Los Hermanos Reunited.” The two Cuban-born brothers will come together with Ilmar’s quartet-mates in Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat and Aldo’s classically-influenced, stylistically-varied brand of Afro-Cuban jazz. Tickets are available here.

As a prelude to the concert, Tuesday Musical is collaborating with Akron’s Nightlight Cinema for screenings of Los Hermanos / The Brothers on Monday, February 28 at 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm. (Tickets are still available for the matinee.) The documentary is about their shared childhood, their separation as a result of geopolitics — Ilmar lives in the U.S., Aldo in Cuba — their reunion, and their subsequent performances across America.

[Read more…]

Fatoumata Diawara makes her visit to the Cleveland Museum of Art

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Balance is a key word in describing singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor Fatoumata Diawara.

There’s her music, where she aims to respect her Malian roots while embracing international influences.

There’s her love of pop music, contrasted with her lyrics, which can venture into heavy subjects — the antithesis of bubblegum.

And there’s the fact that, against those sometimes dark lines of text, she radiates joy onstage.

Clevelanders were deprived of that music and that stage presence two years ago, when Diawara’s trip to the Cleveland Museum of Art was canceled. So it was good news when her name appeared on the lineup for the Museum’s Performing Arts Series this season: she’ll finally make her visit to Gartner Auditorium next Wednesday, March 2 at 7:30 pm. Tickets are available here.

[Read more…]

Richard Hawkins & Friends at the Rocky River Chamber Music Society

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by Mike Telin

When the Oberlin Conservatory’s Richard Hawkins was asked to curate a concert for the Rocky River Chamber Music Society, he knew right away that it was an opportunity to program works that would include his Oberlin Conservatory faculty friends. “It’s always nice to present chamber music for winds and strings that people might not know,” the clarinetist said during a telephone conversation.

On Monday, February 28 at 7:30 pm at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, Hawkins will be joined by Sibbi Bernhardsson (violist), Kirsten Docter (viola), James Howsmon (piano), Dmitry Kouzov (cello), Drew Pattison (bassoon), and Jeff Scott (horn) in a forgotten quintet from the turn of the 20th century, a light-hearted trio from the early 1980s, and a masterpiece sextet from 1935. The performance is free and face masks are required. The event will be live streamed on the RRCMS Facebook page. [Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Choir hosts composer Cecilia McDowall

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by Mike Telin

During the pandemic, the anxiety caused by an unknown future and the longing to return to normal have been beautifully expressed by thousands of people around the globe who participated in the Global Vaccine Poem project. Lines from these poems served as the inspiration for British composer Cecilia McDowall’s On the Air (Dear Vaccine).

Commissioned by the Cleveland Chamber Choir, the work will receive its premiere on Saturday, February 26 at 7:00 pm at Amasa Stone Chapel and on Sunday, February 27 at 5:00 pm at Waetjen Auditorium under the direction of Scott MacPherson. The program, “Cecilia and Her World,” will feature nine of McDowall’s works along with music by composers who have influenced her style.

Joining CCC will be choirs from Cleveland, Kent, and Youngstown State Universities as well as Case Western Reserve University. A pre-concert talk, “In Conversation: Cecilia McDowall with Charles Edward McGuire,” will begin 45 minutes before each performance. Both concerts are free. Click here to download the program and here for COVID-19 protocols.

The Global Vaccine Poem project is the brainchild of David Hassler, director of Kent State University’s Wick Poetry Center, and Tyler Meier, executive director of the University of Arizona’s Poetry Center. So far, the project has received over 2,200 poems from people in 118 countries and every state in the U.S. [Read more…]

The live return of Les Délices:
“Of Gods and Heroes”
and a sense of the meta

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by Jarrett Hoffman

The next concert from Les Délices is indeed about gods and heroes, built around 14th-century songs referencing characters such as Jason and Medea, Ulysses and Circe, and Tristan and Isolde.

But if you’re familiar with artistic director Debra Nagy, who makes a habit of crafting programs both musically and intellectually stimulating, you won’t be surprised that there’s more to these selections than just mythology.

The central idea behind the program — to be presented live February 25-27 in Shaker Heights and Akron — is something more meta. “The funny thing about these 14th-century translations is that they’re not so much about the characters, but about seeing yourself in them, or contrasting your experience with theirs,” Nagy said during a recent Zoom call. “There’s a sense of timeless relatability.”

That timelessness ties into another aspect of the program: the integration of contemporary poetry, including a new poem by former Ohio Poet Laureate Dave Lucas on commission from the ensemble. “A lot of his work draws on or is inspired by myth and storytelling,” Nagy said.

[Read more…]

Pianist Michelle Cann joins Cavani Quartet to open new season of Arts Renaissance Tremont

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by Daniel Hathaway

Thanks (or no thanks) to the pandemic, Arts Renaissance Tremont will open its new season in mid-winter rather than the fall, and due to other circumstances will move its performances from Pilgrim to St. Wendelin Church. The series will also be under new management: the Cavani Quartet will take over its artistic leadership following the passing of its founder, Christine Haff-Paluck.

On Sunday, February 20 at 4:00 pm, pianist Michelle Cann will join the Cavani in a program of piano quintets by Johannes Brahms and Florence Price. Admission is free, but offerings will be gratefully accepted.

Cann, a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music who is on the faculty of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, is treating her visit as something of a homecoming.

I chatted with her earlier this week on her mobile phone while she was driving from Santa Rosa to San José in California for a recording session with a flutist friend. (Not to worry: Bluetooth was operational.) [Read more…]

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