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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…]

Saxophonist Perry Roth joins Glauser School of Music faculty

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On May 27 Kent State University’s Glauser School of Music announced the appointment of saxophonist Perry Roth as an instructor of music. Roth begins in the upcoming fall 2020 semester, having previously served on the faculties of both The Hartt School at the University of Hartford and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. At Kent State, Roth will teach the classical saxophone studio as well as work with chamber music groups.

“I am very excited and honored to be joining the faculty at Kent State,” Roth said in a press release. “I look forward to working with the wonderful students, faculty and staff in the fall.”

Throughout his performance career, Roth has built an impressive roster of collaborative partnerships with some of the country’s leading ensembles and composers of contemporary classical music, including the JACK Quartet and American Modern Ensemble as well as performing premieres of works by Martin Bresnick, Joel Love, and David MacBride. Since 2017, he has also held the tenor saxophone chair with the Barkada Quartet, an all-saxophone ensemble focused on exploring unique artistic collaborations.

[Read more…]

Classical music in a sitcom: NBC’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Here’s a trivia question: what current television series references Mahler, the oboe, and the recorder, and occasionally features one actor’s real operatic singing voice?

It might surprise you that the answer is a cop comedy — NBC’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which recently finished its seventh season and has been picked up for an eighth. The show is about the fictional 99th precinct in Brooklyn, NY, and the group of oddball police officers who work there, including two with a fondness for classical music.

One of them is Detective Norm Scully (played by Joel McKinnon Miller). He’s one of the two “magnificent oafs” of the precinct — a best-friend pairing of older cops whose main interests are greasy food and comfy chairs. But going against trope, Scully also sings opera.

[Read more…]

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