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Cleveland Opera Theater’s Summer Concerts return online 

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by Mike Telin

With the weather forecast to be 85 and sunny with no rain in sight, why not take a picnic to your backyard or front porch and enjoy a family-friendly evening of music courtesy of Cleveland Opera Theater?

Beginning on Saturday, June 20 at 7:00 pm, the company will take its popular Opera For All free summer concerts online. (And if you’re looking for a culinary theme to accompany your listening pleasure, Saturday just happens to be National Ice Cream Social Day.)

“Our hope is that families will be listening together,” Megan Thompson, Cleveland Opera Theater director of education and outreach, said by telephone. “We won’t be announcing the programs until the night of each concert, but it will be a nice mix of familiar pieces, lesser-known works, and we almost always sprinkle in some fun musical theater pieces as well — especially from the Golden Age.”

Performances will continue on July 25 at 7:00 pm (National Hot Fudge Sundae Day and Wine and Cheese Day) and on August 30 at 7:00 pm (National Toasted Marshmallow Day — s’mores perhaps?). [Read more…]

Pianist Michael Lu dedicates 5pm Series recital to racial justice

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by Jarrett Hoffman

In response to current events, pianist Michael Lu will begin his free, live-streamed recital on the 5pm Series (Friday, June 19 at 5:00 on Facebook) with the Andante second movement of Florence Price’s Piano Sonata in e. He will then continue with his previously scheduled program: Liszt’s Rhapsodie Espagnole, Franck’s Prelude, Choral, et Fugue, and Beethoven’s Sonata No. 32 in c.

Lu is dedicating the concert to Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, “and every single member of the African-American community whose lives and futures were cut short because of the cruelty of a broken system that for centuries has failed them,” the pianist said during a recent conversation.

For every donation made to the 5pm Series for Lu’s concert, he will match it in giving up to a total of $200 to the NAACP. He will also donate all of his proceeds to the International Rescue Committee (35%), the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (30%), and back to the 5pm Series (35%) “to help increase the reach of their platform and support professional musicians during these difficult times with the coronavirus pandemic.”

[Read more…]

Oberlin to stream memorial for David Boe on June 14

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by Daniel Hathaway

Oberlin Conservatory has announced a virtual memorial service for the late David S. Boe, Professor of Organ and former Dean of the Conservatory, who died in Chicago on April 28 from complications of COVID-19.

The event, to be live streamed from Oberlin’s Fairchild Chapel on Sunday, June 14 at 4:00 pm, will be led by the Rev. Jimmy Madsen, the retired pastor of First Lutheran Church in Lorain, where Boe served as music director and organist for over 40 years. Tributes will be given by Steven Plank, professor of musicology, and David Kazimir, curator of organs. Music by J.S. Bach, Heinrich Scheidemann, and others will be played by Jonathan Moyer, who holds the David S. Boe professorship in organ.

The two John Brombaugh organs in Fairchild Chapel were commissioned by Boe. The gallery instrument, built in 1981, is a mean-tone organ in the North German style, while a one-manual instrument in the front of the chapel was designed for the Boes’ home and donated to Oberlin in 2012.

Read more about the memorial event here in an article by Cathy Partlow Strauss.

Best of ChamberFest Cleveland broadcasts begin June 24 on WCLV

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by Daniel Hathaway

ChamberFest Cleveland patrons will be thrilled to learn that the popular early summer concert series founded in 2012 by Diana and Franklin Cohen won’t be completely missing in action this year due to the pandemic.

In lieu of its ninth season of live performances, ChamberFest is collaborating with WCLV to broadcast nine programs from its high-quality concert archives. The performances, which draw on material from all eight festival seasons, will be broadcast on the station’s Wednesday evening “Ovations” Series on June 24, August 5, and August 12 from 8:00 to 10:00 pm, and in a series of six, one-hour Sunday evening broadcasts from June 28 through August 2, all at 8:00 pm.

WCLV co-founder Robert Conrad will host and produce the series, which will include performances that have never gone out over the airwaves before.

We’ll share more information about the broadcasts next week. Meanwhile, here’s the schedule as it stands now, subject to change. [Read more…]

Credo goes online for summer 2020

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by Mike Telin

When it became clear that moving forward with an in-person music festival on the Oberlin campus was out of the question, Credo wasted no time making the decision to take the 2020 Festival online. “We thought that if the projections were right, there would be portions of the population that would feel safer with this method,” Credo’s Artistic Director Peter Slowik said during a recent telephone interview. “I think we had announced Credo Online by March 15, and I believe we were the first music festival to do that.”

Beginning on June 22 and continuing through July 10, nearly 160 students will be logging in every day to participate in live events including master classes, private lessons, and chamber music excerpt classes. Students will also have access to a variety of recorded content such as curated concerts by the Arianna, Callisto, and Jasper String Quartets, and faculty lectures about technique, as well as music theory and history discussions. They can also engage with their fellow Festival participants during “hangout sessions.”

How did the Festival planners figure out how to make everything work smoothly and efficiently? “It’s funny, because you solve one problem only to discover that you’ve created another,” Slowik said. “Most music festivals are built on the premise that you get a bunch of people together, sort them out, and do a lot of interactive things. But when you have students from five time zones in the U.S. alone, not to mention Asia, and teachers in three time zones in the U.S., it gets a little interesting when you’re planning remote private lessons. It’s also important that everybody is together for a master class, so those need to be scheduled at a certain time of day.”

[Read more…]

Mark Kosower to launch Trinity live stream series June 5

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland Orchestra principal cello Mark Kosower will play the first pair in a summer series of three live-streamed concerts from Trinity Cathedral on Friday, June 5 at 7:00 pm. His programs will cover all six of Johann Sebastian Bach’s solo cello suites, probably written at Cöthen between 1717 and 1723, before the composer took up his 27-year position in Leipzig.

The performances will truly be live, but with no audience present in Trinity’s spacious nave. “The whole idea was inspired by Andrea Bocelli’s Easter Sunday performance in the Duomo in Milan early in the COVID-19 pandemic,” Kosower said in a recent telephone conversation, noting that Trinity’s music director Todd Wilson was responsible for the idea.

“It really was a very dramatic thing — Bocelli sending music soaring out into that empty space, connecting with people who are isolated and alone because of the circumstances we find ourselves in, and also just communicating the power of music. Instead of a solo tenor, we’ll have a solo cello.

“There are always silver linings in these uncertain and turbulent times, and one of them is the opportunity for innovation and creativity,” Kosower said. “We find ourselves at home, which is of course a place of comfort, but at the same time we have to find new ways to reach out, to connect to people, and be very active and alive as musicians, because you’re really only communicating when you’re connecting with people.” [Read more…]

CICGF: a live-streamed recital from Jason Vieaux and Colin Davin

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by Jarrett Hoffman and Mike Telin

While the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival won’t be happening onsite at the Cleveland Institute of Music as usual, that doesn’t mean you should clear the Festival from your calendar entirely.

On Saturday, June 6 at 2:00 pm (Eastern Time), CICGF will offer a live-streamed concert featuring two mainstays of the Festival: Jason Vieaux and Colin Davin, who co-head the guitar department at CIM in addition to sharing numerous honors between them as performers. Tickets are $10 each and can be purchased online, with all proceeds directly benefiting the artists.

ClevelandClassical.com’s Jarrett Hoffman reached Colin Davin by Zoom to talk about his half of the program: Pedro Elías Gutiérrez’s Alma Llanera (arranged by Alirio Diaz), Leo Brouwer’s El Decameron Negro, Radamés Gnattali’s Brasiliana No. 13, Agustín Barrios Mangoré’s Julia Florida, and Fernando Bustamante Misionera (arranged by Jorge Morel).

[Read more…]

Anthony McGill begins #TakeTwoKnees movement

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by Jarrett Hoffman

In response to the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, and the killing of so many other black people in this country, clarinetist Anthony McGill has begun a call to action to #TakeTwoKnees “in the struggle for justice and decency.”

On Wednesday, May 27, the principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic posted to his Facebook page a powerful written message and a short video: his performance of a deeply sad arrangement of America the Beautiful. Since then, 70,000 people have watched that original video, and a countless number of musicians and other artists have responded by adding their voices in solidarity.

Hymns, spirituals, jazz, classical, folk songs, pop, new compositions, dance performances, visual art, or no art at all — the responses have been highly varied, though nearly all of them include the gesture of getting down on two knees in a moment of silence. The emotional experience of taking in these forms of expression cannot be put into words.

[Read more…]

Looking ahead: What’s on for the summer of 2020?

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by Daniel Hathaway

Memorial Day — which fell as early on the calendar as it possibly can this year — traditionally marks the transition to summer. As we look forward to June and beyond, what’s in the forecast for the classical music scene in Northeast Ohio?

The avalanche of pandemic cancellations that began in mid-March and effectively brought an end to live performances for the rest of 2019-2020 has been replaced with a long list of summer events that won’t take place as usual.

Apollo’s Fire’s Countryside Concerts? Cancelled. The Re:Sound new music festival and the Cleveland Trombone Seminar? Not happening. The Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival? Postponed, but see below. ChamberFest Cleveland? Moved to 2021. Ohio Light Opera? Dark for 2020, but offering the same lineup next summer.

Summer educational programs? Encore Chamber Music at Gilmour Academy — scheduled to take place in the school’s new performing arts center — has moved to 2021. Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute is being held online and reduced to one week. Kent/Blossom Festival is cancelled. The Sphinx Performance Academy has moved online from July 25-August 8. [Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Choir  appoints first Assistant Conductor

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On May 19 Cleveland Chamber Choir announced the appointment of Corey Fowler as the organization’s first Assistant Conductor. Now approaching their sixth season under Artistic Director and co-founder Scott MacPherson, Cleveland Chamber Choir has grown to include over ten performances and outreach programs each year, as well as frequent collaborations with other Northeast Ohio organizations, including BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland Composers Guild, Cleveland State University, Kent State University, Oberlin Choristers, and Kent Roosevelt High School ChoralWorks.

“On behalf of the Board of the Cleveland Chamber Choir, I am delighted to announce the appointment of Corey Fowler as Assistant Conductor,” CCC Board President Melissa Vandergriff said in a press release. “Corey has been an invaluable member of the CCC family since our debut concert in 2015. He is well connected to our community as a Kent State University graduate, as well as being Director of Choirs at Kent Roosevelt High School and Director of Music at Kent United Church of Christ. His strong Ohio roots and links to the community will help CCC strengthen our commitment to being More than Music! in Northeast Ohio.” [Read more…]

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