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Stroud Classical Guitar Competition: Final Round to go online Friday

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by Daniel Hathaway

The Second Annual James Stroud Classical Guitar Competition, like last year’s contest, has been conducted entirely online due to the pandemic. The young competitors have submitted videos in lieu of in-person appearances, and the final round, featuring the four remaining guitarists, will go online on Friday, June 18, at 7:30 pm.

Ethan Boyers, 16, from Santa Rosa, California, Jack Davisson, 16, from Palo Alto, California, Patricia Hernandez, 17, from Miami, Florida, and Eric Wang, 17, from San José, California will be competing for cash prizes of $10,000, $5,000, $2,500, and $1,000.

Hudson resident James Stroud, who launched his competition twenty years ago, decided to change its emphasis beginning last year, focusing on 14-18 year olds and holding it during the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival. In a telephone conversation, he said that although the pandemic has been a disaster for so many musicians’ lives and livelihoods, the 2021 competition is looking good.

“We had fewer applicants this year, but the level of playing seemed to be higher,” he said, partly attributing that to the fact that the 2020 competition had intended to bring fifteen semifinalists to Cleveland, but that this year’s contest was planned as an online event from the beginning. [Read more…]

Jones, Parker, Csicsila, and McDaniel come together to celebrate “Black and Unknown Bards” for Re:Sound

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by Stephanie Manning

For Matthew Jones, the best part about performing is doing it with your longtime friends. Luckily, the vocalist was recently able to do just that when he recorded a concert in person with hornist Van Parker, percussionist Mell Csicsila, and composer/pianist Buck McDaniel. The four are frequent collaborators who know each other well both on- and off-stage.

“We hung out during the pandemic and have been each other’s support system in some way,” Jones said in a recent interview. “So when it came time to make music again, all it took was just getting the cobwebs off.” The quartet’s latest performance, presented as part of the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s 2021 Re:Sound Festival, features pieces that are deeply rooted in the Black experience.

[Read more…]

ENCORE Chamber Music: Evelyn Wright on Billie Holiday

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Scientists, activists, a writer, a visual artist, a jazz singer, and a former president all sparked inspiration in the mind of Jinjoo Cho as she developed this summer’s Music & Ideas Festival as part of ENCORE Chamber Music Institute.

That jazz singer? The great Billie Holiday, whose life and music will be explored in two events on Friday, June 18 as ENCORE begins its Juneteenth Celebration Weekend.

At 7:00 pm, the Evelyn Wright Jazz Quartet — made up of Wright herself on vocals (pictured), pianist Dave Thomas, drummer Bill Ransom, and bassist Peter Dominguez — will play a program titled “Sparked by Billie,” made up of songs that Holiday either wrote, such as God Bless the Child, or famously recorded, like Strange Fruit. See the full setlist here.

An hour earlier, at 6:00 pm, Cho will join Wright and Thomas for “Billie Holiday: Tragedy and Triumph,” a panel discussion about the intersection of those two elements in Holiday’s life. Both events take place at the Dodero Center for the Performing Arts, located on the Gilmour Academy campus in Gates Mills. Tickets are available here.

[Read more…]

Father’s Day with ChamberFest: Alexi Kenney and Ferdinand the Bull

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by Jarrett Hoffman

This Father’s Day, skip the awkward conversations with dad and instead sit down with him to enjoy an hour of music together, courtesy of ChamberFest Cleveland.

On Sunday, June 20 at 3:00 pm, six musicians and one narrator will gather at The Grove Amphitheatre to share a family-friendly program highlighted by Alain Ridout’s Ferdinand the Bull and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s La Poule (“The Hen”). The selections also include music by Richard Strauss, Antonín Dvořák, Helen Grime, and Franz Schubert. Reserve a free ticket here.

The Ridout piece, for solo violin and narrator, is a musical retelling of Munro Leaf’s classic children’s book The Story of Ferdinand. That heart-warming and humorous tale centers around a bull who stays true to himself — he enjoys smelling the flowers and having a bit of peace and quiet, even when he somehow ends up in the middle of a bullring.

Translated into more than 60 languages since its publication in 1936, the book has been read in households all over the world, including that of at least one ChamberFest musician when he was a kid. “My parents would read it to me when I was little,” violinist Alexi Kenney said in a recent interview. “It was one of my favorite children’s books.”

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland:
Looking Ahead at Week 2

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by Mike Telin

The second week of ChamberFest Cleveland begins on Wednesday, June 16 at 7:00 pm at The Grove Amphitheatre in Mayfield. Admission is free, but reservations are required. A full weekly calendar listing is below.

The program “Luscious Soundscapes” begins with pianist Shai Wosner’s imaginative interweaving of sonatas by Italian Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) with sonatas by American composer Frederick Rzewski (1938 -). Wosner’s three pairings include Scarlatti’s Sonata in d K. 141 with Rzewski’s Nanosonata No. 36 (“To a Young Man”), Scarlatti’s Sonata in d K. 9 with Rzewski’s Nanosonata No. 38 (“To a Great Guy”), and Scarlatti’s Sonata in c K. 230 with Rzewski’s Nanosonata No. 12.

If juxtaposing music by these two seemingly dissimilar composers sounds like an oddity, Wosner believes they make an interesting match. “I love Scarlatti and I love Rezewski,” the pianist said during an interview. “And I think that Scarlatti and Rzewski are mavericks in similar ways. Of course their music is very different from one another’s, and Rzewski was not trying to emulate Scarlatti in any way with his short sonatas. The Nanosonatas are almost like a stream of consciousness, but I hear that in the Scarlattis as well.” [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra returns
to Blossom Music Center

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by Mike Telin

While many of us understood the seriousness of COVID-19 back in March of 2020, it did take time to grasp the extent to which the pandemic would alter our lives. “We cancelled the later part of the Severance season, but it wasn’t until we cancelled Blossom that I thought to myself, ‘this is very serious,’ Ross Binnie, the Orchestra’s Chief Brand Officer recalled during a recent conversation. “It was a huge signal and a huge blow.”

After a year’s hiatus, the sounds of The Cleveland Orchestra will once again fill the grounds of Blossom Music Center and no one could be more excited than Binnie. “I was down there to do a television spot, and looking out on the lawn, the space is so beautiful. To be honest, it was very emotional, thinking that a small bit of people’s lives every summer is on its way back. And the more interviews I do the more excited I become.”

The season kicks off on Saturday, July 3 and Sunday, July 4 at 8:00 pm with An American Celebration. Brett Mitchell, will lead performances of Leonard Bernstein’s “Overture” to Candide, Mary D. Watkins’ Soul of Remembrance, Florence Price’s Concerto in One Movement, with Michelle Cann as soloist, Adolphus Hailstork’s An American Fanfare, Aaron Copland’s “Suite” from Appalachian Spring, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, and Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever. A full season list is below. [Read more…]

Dante + Chin Duo explore shared dreamscapes in new work for Re:Sound

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by Stephanie Manning

While living halfway across the country from each other due to the pandemic, vocalist Nina Dante and flutist Dalia Chin of the Dante + Chin Duo began sharing their dreams as a way to stay connected. “My dreams mean a lot to me — they feel like dialogues that our top-side self gets to have with our subconscious self, and I take them really seriously,” Dante said in a recent interview. That intersection of dreams and reality inspired Which of my forms, the Duo’s new work composed for the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s 2021 Re:Sound Festival.

A few months into lockdown, Dante dreamed about a woman who could take two different forms — specifically, two creatures who were in a predator-prey relationship. Fascinated by how the story portrayed the dualities of the spirit, the pair chose to represent that concept through a cougar and a deer. First, Chin sent Dante an improvisatory recording that set up the “sonic world.” This six-minute track was released as a standalone work late last year, but a shortened version would later become the first of Which of my forms’ four movements.

[Read more…]

Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival: Colin Davin & the piece that brought back his spark

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Leo Brouwer’s Sonata del Caminante is a remarkable piece in its own right. But it also has a personal significance to guitarist Colin Davin, who will play it during a virtual recital that airs on YouTube on Friday, June 11 at 7:30 pm as part of the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival.

“This piece has meant a lot to me this year because it got me out of my rut,” Davin said during an interview last week. “Like a lot of artists, I had a real valley of motivation. I was still going through the motions — I got the guitar out every day and did some technique work — but I was pretty down.”

On better days, he’d do some sight-reading, and on one of those days, he picked up the score to the Brouwer. “And something just clicked — like, man, this is cool, this is great — and I got the spark back.”

Composed in 2007, the Sonata was dedicated to Odair Assad. “He’s a monster guitarist who can do a lot of stuff that most of us can’t,” Davin said. “So we have Brouwer, who before injuries was quite a virtuoso himself, writing for a great virtuoso. I was kind of like, let’s see if I can hang on.” And he did. “For whatever reason, a lot of Brouwer’s guitar tricks clicked for me pretty quickly.” (He’ll say more about those tricks during a brief talk as part of his program.)

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: a conversation with Shai Wosner

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by Mike Telin

After a long wait, the next edition of ChamberFest Cleveland will kick off on Wednesday, June 9 at 7:00 pm at The Grove Amphitheatre in Mayfield. Admission is free, but reservations are required. The program, titled “Legends,” will include Antonín Dvořák’s Legends, Enrique Granados’ Sonata for Violin and Piano, Paul Wiancko’s American Haiku, and Franz Schubert’s Trio No. 2 in E-flat.

The evening will begin with pianist Shai Wosner’s arrangement of the Dvořák performed by clarinetist Franklin Cohen, violist Dimitri Murrath, and Wosner, who will be making his ChamberFest debut.

Originally written for piano four-hands, the ten pieces that comprise the work were later arranged for orchestra by the composer. I asked the pianist why he decided to make his own arrangement, and why he chose this particular instrumentation?

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: a chat with Zlatomir Fung

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by Daniel Hathaway

Photo Credit: I-Jung Huang

Bearing a name that reflects his Bulgarian-Chinese heritage, 21-year-old cellist Zlatomir Fung scored a big victory in the 2019 XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition, becoming the first American in forty years to win Gold — and the youngest contestant ever to earn that distinction in the Russian contest.

Fung will make his first visit to Cleveland this week to play six works in the first four concerts of ChamberFest Cleveland. “I’ve worked with Roman Rabinovich and New York’s Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players. We’d been hoping for a few years that I could come, and now it’s finally panned out,” he said in an early morning phone call on Tuesday before heading off to a rehearsal.

ChamberFest will keep Fung busy during his sojourn in Cleveland. He’s slated to play Paul Wiancko’s American Haiku with violist Dimitri Murrath, Schubert’s Trio No. 2 with violinist Itamar Zorman and pianist Shai Wosner, Ernö Dohnányi’s Piano Quartet No. 2 with Zorman, violinist 
Diana Cohen, Murrath, and Wosner, Alexander Zemlinsky’s Clarinet Trio, Op. 3
 with Franklin Cohen and pianist Roman Rabinovich, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Lamentations Suite
 for cello solo, and Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello with Zorman.

[Read more…]

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