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No Exit embarks on a number of firsts 

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by Mike Telin

Note: the concert on Saturday, December 18 has now been cancelled due to COVID concerns.

Now that musical ensembles are presenting concerts in front of in-person audiences, many groups are reviving plans that had been put on hold.

On Saturday, December 18 at 8:00 pm at Praxis Fiber Workshop, No Exit will present the last of three area concerts in partnership with a group of composers known as The Collective.

The program includes works by Amelia Kaplan, Mathew Rosenblum, Douglas Knehans, Cindy Cox, Pamela Madsen, and Konstantin Koukias. The concert is free.

“This is a new adventure in programming — playing an entire program of pieces by one group of composers,” No Exit artistic director Tim Beyer said during a recent telephone conversation. “We will be playing their works throughout this season.” [Read more…]

Cavani and 90 students take last lap of “Beyond Beethoven” project to Severance on Tuesday, Dec. 14   

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by Daniel Hathaway

“It’s like putting on all the Shakespeare plays in a month — it takes all your heart and soul and energy,” Cavani Quartet founder and primo violin Annie Fullard said in a recent telephone conversation about their “Beyond Beethoven” project.

But unlike Shakespeare, no blood was spilled, nobody got poisoned, and no kings were deposed during a three-month program that brought all sixteen of Beethoven’s string quartets — performed in tandem with works by eight living composers — to audiences in as many concerts and different venues around the metropolitan area, and involved working with four high school orchestra programs. “If I had to find one word to describe it, it’s been a lovefest,” Fullard said.

Fullard, a founding member of the Cavani Quartet, played for a decade with its original members, then for 25 years with the second generation of players. Her third time around is also her second time presenting the complete Beethoven cycle, now with three new musicians (she calls it “Cavani 2.0”)

The project will culminate in a Grand Finale on Tuesday evening, December 14 at 7:30 pm in Mandel Hall at Severance Music Center, when the Cavani — Annie Fullard and Catherine Cosbey, violins, Eric Wong, viola, and Kyle Price, cello — play Beethoven’s Opus 59, No. 3, followed by two premieres. [Read more…]

Winter Art Song Mini-Festival features Anthony Roth Costanzo and Bryan Wagorn from December 9-11

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by Daniel Hathaway

It’s been rough going recently for the Cleveland Art Song Festival, which moved back in 2017 to the Cleveland Institute of Music, where the biennial event was founded by voice professor George Vassos in 1985.

In normal times, the weeklong festival that features master classes with teams of singers and pianists, celebrity recitals, and a participant concert, alternates in “off” years with a recital by a well-known artist.

First, Vassos, who taught at CIM for 50 years and served as the festival’s artistic director, died in February, 2020. Then COVID-19 arrived in March. As Festival executive director Dean Southern put it, “We had just finished Magic Flute at CIM, went away for spring break, and never came back.” That year’s full Festival, scheduled for the end of May, was postponed.

A comeback was planned for May of 2021, when most of the artists were still available, but due to the continuing pandemic, was replaced by a virtual event last April. “Instead, we invited singers from CIM, Baldwin Wallace, and Oberlin to an online master class with Warren Jones at the Institute, using a low-latency studio,” Southern said in a recent telephone conversation. “We made it work, and nearly 200 people logged on from around the world.”

Now, the organization has announced a winter Mini-Festival at CIM for this coming weekend, featuring a recital and master classes by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and pianist Bryan Wagorn — Vassos’ choices for the cancelled event in 2020, the last festival he designed. Happily, both were available to coach and perform. [Read more…]

Celebrate the holidays with The Cleveland Orchestra

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by Mike Telin

“What gets me excited about holiday concerts? Honestly, everything about them,” conductor Brett Mitchell said during a telephone conversation. “Every performance is for the audience, but these concerts really are for them. There’s so much opportunity for banter, and every crowd feels different.”

Mitchell pointed out a favorite quote of his from the late Stephen Sondheim, who said, the audience is the final collaborator. “And that is what we have been missing for the last two years in general, but particularly for this kind of program.”

Beginning on Thursday, December 9 at 7:30 pm, Brett Mitchell returns to Mandel Hall at Severance to lead The Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra Chorus in a holiday program devoted to music of the season. The concert also features director of choruses Lisa Wong as well as vocalist and Northeast Ohio favorite Capathia Jenkins. Performances continue through December 19. See our Concert Listings page for dates, times, and guest choirs. Tickets are available online.

Mitchell noted that the concerts are also a family affair where everyone in the audience gets dressed in their holiday finest. “It’s a special occasion for them, and to look out and see the kids and the magic in their eyes when ‘you know who’ makes his special entrance is so heartwarming.” [Read more…]

Holiday music and giving thanks: Cleveland Chamber Choir to premiere two works by Corey K. Rubin

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by Jarrett Hoffman

You know that an organization thinks highly of a composer when one commission turns into three — and then four.

Back in 2018, Cleveland Chamber Choir artistic director Scott MacPherson asked Corey K. Rubin to contribute a Hanukkah arrangement to their holiday program. A member of CCC himself, and now also on the composition and music theory faculty of Cleveland State University, Rubin smartly realized that a set of three Hanukkah arrangements would be more appealing in his catalog than a single one all by its lonesome. MacPherson was “more than thrilled” at the idea, Rubin told me at the time.

Those arrangements have been premiered one at a time over the past few years. The final one, Sevivon — and the set as a whole — will be premiered this weekend when CCC presents “Carols Around the World,” a free program of holiday selections and music on the theme of giving thanks. Performances take place Saturday, December 11 at 7:00 pm at Old Stone Church in Cleveland, and Sunday, December 12 at 4:00 pm at Christ Episcopal Church in Hudson.

Now we come to premiere number four in this tale, also to be performed on this weekend’s program.

[Read more…]

Nic McGegan makes Apollo’s Fire debut in Handel’s Messiah

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by Mike Telin

Although Nic McGegan has led numerous concerts with The Cleveland Orchestra, he has never conducted Apollo’s Fire. That will change this week when he makes his debut with the acclaimed period instrument ensemble in five area performances of Handel’s Messiah.

On Wednesday, December 8 at 7:30 pm at St. Bernard Catholic Church in Akron, McGegan will lead Apollo’s Fire & Apollo’s Singers and soloists Erica Schuller, soprano, Daniel Moody, countertenor, Thomas Cooley, tenor, and Hadleigh Adams, baritone, in Handel’s celebrated oratorio. Performances run through Sunday, December 12. See our Concert Listings page for locations and times. Tickets are available online.

For the next two weeks McGegan’s musical life will be all about Handel’s oratorio. “I’m doing nine in total — five with Apollo’s Fire and then four with the Chicago Symphony,” the affable maestro said during a telephone conversation from St. Louis, where he was conducting concerts with the St. Louis Symphony. 

[Read more…]

Cleveland Arts Prize Past Masters

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by Mike Telin

Being recognized with a Cleveland Arts Prize is arguably the greatest honor that someone working in Northeast Ohio’s cultural sector can have bestowed upon them. Founded in 1960 by the Women’s City Club of Cleveland, since 1961 CAP has honored over 350 artists and arts leaders whose work has advanced the disciplines of literature, music, design, visual art, theater, film, and dance.   

Although CAP’s list of recipients reads like a who’s who of the region’s most influential artists, a closer look reveals many names that are conspicuously absent. “People come up to me and say, ‘How come Langston Hughes never won the prize, how come Ernst Bloch never won?’” Cleveland author and biographer Dennis Dooley said during a telephone conversation. “I tell them, that’s because the Arts Prize didn’t exist yet.” 

In honor of its 60th anniversary, The Cleveland Arts Prize, in partnership with The Cleveland History Center, will recognize the region’s artist luminaries of days gone by with its Past Masters Project.     

The year-long celebration kicks off on Saturday, December 4 with “Honoring Our Past Masters: The Golden Age of Cleveland Art, 1900–1945” at the Hay-McKinney Mansion. Doors open at 1:00 pm for a 1:30 concert that will feature music by five Past Master composers performed by members of The Cleveland Orchestra and guest musicians (download the program here). Tickets for the concert are available online. 

[Read more…]

Quire Cleveland: Jay White talks about returning to live singing

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by Daniel Hathaway

Quire Cleveland will resume live concerts this weekend, with three performances of the 11th edition of its annual Carols for Quire scheduled for December 2, 3, and 4 in great ecclesiastical spaces around the city.

I reached conductor Jay White by phone in his studio at Kent State University and began by asking him what was involved in restarting a choral machine that’s been silent for two seasons.

“It’s been interesting,” he said. “As you can imagine, many of the singers, unless they had any kind of a church job over the course of the pandemic — when they were recording something and sending it in — there’s been very little if any ensemble work at all, or it’s been one singer on a part. Most of the members of the ensemble, myself included, haven’t had much opportunity to sing in the past 20-some-odd months.

“That said, what has been working well is that the enthusiasm and excitement for wanting to do this work is infectious to the point where people are really stepping up,” he said. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra: Getting to know Bryce Dessner

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by Mike Telin

Bryce Dessner’s musical world defies categorization. The Cincinnati native’s music has been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Kronos Quartet, and Sō Percussion, to name a few.

His diverse roster of collaborators includes Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Paul Simon, Nico Muhly, Jonny Greenwood, Bon Iver, Jennifer Koh, Kelley O’Connor, and Taylor Swift as well as choreographer Justin Peck, and multimedia artist Ragnar Kjartansson.

The 45-year-old has won GRAMMY Awards for Best Chamber Music Performance (2016) for Murder Ballads, performed by Eighth Blackbird, and Best Alternative Music Album (2018) for Sleep Well Beast with the The National, which includes Dessner and his twin brother Aaron on guitar, piano, and keyboards.

On Friday, November 26 at 7:30 pm and Saturday at 8:00 pm in Mandel Hall at Severance, pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque will perform Dessner’s Concerto for Two Pianos with The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Gustavo Gimeno. The program also includes Ravel’s Suite from Ma Mère l’Oye (“Mother Goose”) and Franck’s Symphony in d. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra: a chat with Gustavo Gimeno

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by Mike Telin

When Gustavo Gimeno was appointed principal percussion of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, he quickly began doing something that he had wanted to do for some time — study conducting. The Spainard soon came under the tutelage of Mariss Jansons and Claudio Abbado, and beginning with the  2015-16 season he became chief conductor of the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra.

On Friday, November 26 at 7:30 pm and Saturday at 8:00 pm, Gimeno will return to the podium in Mandel Hall at Severance to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a program titled “French Perspectives.” The concerts will feature Ravel’s Suite from Ma Mère l’Oye (“Mother Goose”), Bryce Dessner’s Concerto for Two Pianos with Katia Labèque and Marielle Labèque, and Franck’s Symphony in d. Tickets are available online.

I reached the friendly maestro — always a great conversationalist — by phone in Toronto where he serves as Music Director of the Toronto Symphony.

[Read more…]

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