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Re:Sound 2021 gives audiences the freedom to explore through interactive approach

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by Stephanie Manning

After taking a year off, the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project (CUSP) is gearing up for its return with Re:Sound 2021, an innovative, online music festival that will premiere on June 3. Faced with an influx of pandemic-fueled virtual concerts,  “we decided to take a season to reconnect and think about what we wanted to do,” artistic director Sophie Benn said in a recent interview. She added that finally putting on an event again “feels amazing.”

An annual showcase of new and experimental music, CUSP’s Re:Sound Festival features artists from both the Cleveland area and around the country. COVID precautions will keep the 2021 Festival online this year — however, its approach to the new format is as unique as the music it will present. A variety of pre-recorded videos from all ten artists will go live on June 3 and be available through June 30, allowing audiences to watch whatever they want, whenever they want.

“I feel like I have a very poor attention span when I’m at my computer, and I think a lot of people feel that way,” Benn said. “We wanted to give people a lot of agency to experience the music on their own terms.” [Read more…]

Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival: Dan Lippel to play well-tempered Bach

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by Daniel Hathaway

On Friday, May 28, Dan Lippel’s program on this year’s all-online Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival will feature music by Johann Sebastian Bach played on a guitar tuned to a Baroque temperament. Most classical music fans know that Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a collection of preludes and fugues in all 24 keys called The Well-Tempered Clavier, but if asked to explain why he did that, many would get it wrong.

It’s not that the composer wanted to demonstrate the wisdom of tuning a keyboard instrument in such a way that a piece in G Major would sound just as in-tune if you transposed it to E-flat. That would describe equal temperament. Instead, Bach was referring to a tuning compromise: a “well temperament” where all keys are more or less acceptable to the ear, but each is different in character from the other.

During the Renaissance, instruments were usually tuned in “just intonation,” a system that produced a handful of beautifully in-tune keys, but things began to get ugly if you wanted to move very far away from C or F major. That’s when “the wolf” raised its ugly voice, forcing musicians to make a compromise between moving freely from key to key and enjoying perfect in-tuneness.

“It’s a relatively new area of interest for me over the last three or four years. But I’m hooked,” Lippel said in a recent telephone conversation. [Read more…]

Life lessons learned through Chamber Music with the Cavani

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by Mike Telin

While the pandemic is still causing major disruptions in our nation’s educational system, there are countless stories of how teachers, students, and parents have come together and met their unique challenges head-on.

Programs that have faced extreme obstacles are the junior high, high school, and city youth orchestras — how do you keep students engaged in performance-focused programs when their reasons for existing have been put on hold?

During the recently completed academic year, the Lakewood High School Orchestra program and the Cavani String Quartet partnered for the inspired, interdisciplinary Visiting Artist Project. Using chamber music — Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 8 and Daniel Bernard Roumain’s Kompa Variations — as a catalyst for expression and team-building, the Project also provided an opportunity to talk in general about the impact of the pandemic on high school age students. Although an in-person performance was not a certainty for the duration of the project, ultimately one did take place in front of a live audience in April.

During a Zoom conversation in the fall, Lakewood High School orchestra director Dr. Elizabeth Hankins explained that the gestation of the project began when the Ohio Music Education Association asked the Lakewood music teachers to create a plan for learning during the pandemic. One person Hankins turned to for advice was Annie Fullard of the Cavani String Quartet. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra releases details of its 104th Severance Hall Season

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by Daniel Hathaway

On Sunday, May 23, The Cleveland Orchestra announced its return to live concerts at Severance Hall in October, as “a more flexible, innovative, versatile, and empathetic institution, strengthened by the lessons of the past 14 months.”

Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, who begins his 20th season with the Orchestra this fall, commented on the planning process for the new season. “We are in a constant state of exploration, there’s an infinite number of options and combinations of how you put together a season, which is fun and exciting.”

Chief Artistic Officer Mark Williams wrote, “It’s been empowering to embrace meaningful conversations about incorporating voices especially from people of color and women. Going forward, I’m encouraged that the strides we’ve made in realizing this season will become a template for the future.” [Read more…]

Meyer crafts special online concert for BlueWater Chamber Orchestra

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by Daniel Hathaway

In a normal season (remember those?), Daniel Meyer would describe his job as music director and conductor of the Erie Symphony, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, and the Lakeside Symphony. Since COVID hit, things have changed. “I’ve apparently become a film producer,” he told me in a recent telephone conversation. “That’s a skill set I didn’t know I had before the pandemic, but it’s helped justify our existence.”

Having already established a good relationship with Erie’s public radio and television stations, Meyer and the Symphony leapt at the invitation to produce eight hour-long programs over the course of the season in lieu of in-person concerts. “That forced us to get creative and explore some very interesting repertoire.” [Read more…]

Armin Kelly talks about taking this year’s International Classical Guitar Festival online

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival founder Armin Kelly was planning to celebrate the second decade of the event when the novel coronavirus crashed the party. “The 2020 shutdown was too close to our festival time to put an alternate plan together,” he said in a recent phone conversation. “So we put up one streamed concert, and that was our 20th anniversary season.”

That concert featured perennial festival favorites Jason Vieaux and Colin Davin performing from the audition room of Guitars International, the business Kelly runs out of his house. “It made me very happy to present them, because Jason and Colin had had all of their concerts cancelled and hadn’t been able to perform for anyone for a month or two,” Kelly said. He added that he had more fun than anyone else at his own party. “There was so much excitement behind the scenes. It really touched my heart.” [Read more…]

Oberlin Conservatory goes Global (first of two articles) 

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by Mike Telin

Oberlin Conservatory has announced that its successes in implementing online education over the past year have given rise to entirely new opportunities for virtual learning developed for a worldwide audience. This summer marks the launch of Oberlin Conservatory Global, which begins with a series of courses designed for music students, teachers, and lifelong learners of all backgrounds.

“The intergenerational possibility of these classes is something we are promoting,” Joseph Lubben, executive director of OC Global and associate professor of music theory at Oberlin, said during a Zoom interview. “I think a number of institutions around the world understand that one part of classes like these is connecting to the local community. Another part is connecting to their alumni who also cross all generations. I’m very excited about all of that — but it’s new territory for Oberlin.” [Read more…]

No Exit and Zeitgeist to Explore New Sound Worlds 

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by Daniel Hathaway

The new music ensemble No Exit continues its longstanding collaboration with Zeitgeist, their counterparts from Minnesota’s Twin Cities, with “New Sound Worlds,” a free online concert that debuts on Friday, May 21 at 7:00 pm.

No Exit founder and artistic director Timothy Beyer said in a recent phone conversation that the mostly solo works on the program “get outside the traditional mold and deal with sound more than formal structure. They’re immersive, but cerebral, and they also force more active listening.”

The exception is Frederic Rzewski’s Down by the Riverside, the piano work that Nicholas Underhill will play at the beginning of the program. “He presents the tune in  kind of a literal way, then he goes nuts,” Beyer said. [Read more…]

Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival: a conversation with Robert Gruca

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by Mike Telin

From the time he moved to Northeast Ohio to attend the Cleveland Institute of Music, Robert Gruca has always looked forward to the annual Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival. “When you’re a student it’s a huge opportunity to hear such great artists and have master classes with them — and to be able to pick their brains about professional life,” Gruca said during a recent interview.

On Friday, May 21, Gruca and lutenist Nigel North will have the honor of kicking off the 2021 edition of that Festival with a split-bill, pre-recorded recital beginning at 7:30 pm. Viewing access is free — watch here — and donations are encouraged.

Since his student days, the guitarist has gone on to enjoy an active career as a performer, educator, and clinician. Hailed by Audaud.com as “a brilliant player with gorgeous tone and a flawless sense of rhythm,” Gruca has earned several first prizes in national guitar competitions and released two solo recordings. He launched the first Suzuki Guitar program in Northeast Ohio at The Music Settlement in 2013. Along with flutist Linda White, he is one-half of the acclaimed Gruca White Ensemble. 

[Read more…]

Tuesday Musical presents Sphinx Virtuosi in person

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by Jarrett Hoffman

One of the Sphinx Organization’s most important representatives onstage is the Sphinx Virtuosi. That string orchestra, primarily made up of Sphinx Competition alumni, is dedicated to increasing racial and ethnic diversity in classical music.

The Virtuosi embody that mission not only in their roster, but also through their programming. On Wednesday, May 26 at 7:30 pm, in a concert presented by Tuesday Musical, a quintet from the ensemble will visit E.J. Thomas Hall to share “Land of the Free.” The program includes works by Xavier Foley, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Andrea Casarrubios, Samuel Barber, and Antonín Dvořák. (Tickets are available here.)

In addition to showcasing a diversity of American and American-inspired composers, the selections explore interesting territory when it comes to instrumentation: chamber orchestra pieces scaled down as quintets, string quartets scaled up a notch with a double bass, and a solo cello piece in the middle.

[Read more…]

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