by Mike Telin

The program features Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade in a, Elgar’s Cello Concerto and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 6. The program is repeated on Friday at 7:30 pm, Saturday at 8:00 pm, and Sunday at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.
We caught up with Jakub Hrůša at his hotel and began our conversation by asking him what it’s like to be able to return to the States? Our conversation with Sheku Kanneh-Mason is below.
Jakub Hrůša: This is the first time I’ve flown overseas since the beginning of the pandemic and I’m very happy that it was to Cleveland — it’s a very special feeling. Because of the history of my visits — for a while I was coming almost every year — I think of Cleveland as my American home. It’s great that after this pandemic pause the first people I see are these musicians. And that feeling connects to the public as well, so I’m very happy that after that period of absence I can be here again. [Read more…]



It’s good for composers to try writing outside their comfort zone, but some members of the Cleveland Composers Guild are challenging themselves to scale new heights by learning to write for the carillon.
This year and last, Thanksgiving has taken on an additional meaning, something that the Cleveland Chamber Choir will recognize in a free program to open its seventh season on Saturday, November 6 at 7:00 pm at St. Ambrose Parish in Brunswick.
“Creativity is the expression of life, so for me the question is why on earth would you not be creative? Why on earth would you not want to grow?” flutist, composer, improviser, author, teacher, and inventor Robert Dick said during a recent telephone interview. A leader in contemporary flute music, he has redefined the instrument’s musical possibilities.
A swirl of CIM connections pervades the next program from the school’s New Music Ensemble, starting with the featured guest: Jerod Impichch
Whether it was the passing of his mother in February 1865 or the death of Robert Schumann later that same year, no one is certain what motivated Johannes Brahms to compose his large-scale, non-liturgical Requiem in the German language.
It’s always interesting to hear how musicians come to choose their instruments. Some want to follow in the footsteps of a family member, while others prefer to chart their own path. “What drew me to the saxophone to begin with was my grandma,” Gabriel Piqué said during a recent telephone conversation. “It’s something you never want to hear your grandma say, but I brought one home and she said ‘Gabe, that instrument is sexy.’ I think I was in the 6th grade, and that’s when I decided that I didn’t want to play clarinet or flute, I wanted to play the saxophone.”
When Turkish-American guitarist Celil Refik Kaya returns to the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society for a recital at Plymouth Church on Saturday, October 23 at 7:30 pm, there will be one important overlap with his program from four years ago: it will include a piece by Celil Refik Kaya.
If you ask a musician what new skill they learned during the past eighteen months, more often than not, the answer is video editing. And, in a relatively short amount of time, many became quite good at it.
In Greek mythology the nine Muses were the source of knowledge and inspiration for poets, musicians, and philosophers. “They inspired everybody,” bassoonist Catalina Guevara Víquez Klein, said during a telephone interview. “That’s the reason Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is called the 10th Muse, because she too inspired everybody.”