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ChamberFest: a conversation with Raman Ramakrishnan

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by Mike Telin

With a Bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University and a Masters in music from The Juilliard School, Raman Ramakrishnan’s career path could have gone in numerous directions. “For me, it’s always been about the cello,” Ramakrishnan said during a recent interview. “And from the beginning, chamber music is what I loved.”

Next week the Athens, Ohio-born cellist will make his ChamberFest Cleveland debut in three programs. I began our Zoom conversation by asking him if he has spent any time in Cleveland.

Raman Ramakrishnan: Actually, my mother was born in Cleveland and grew up in Cleveland along with her three sisters. And my grandparents are buried in Cleveland on the West Side.

Mike Telin: You were born in Athens, Ohio.

RR: I was. But to be honest, I only spent two months of my life there before my parents moved. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland welcomes composer/performer Errollyn Wallen

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by Mike Telin

In her memoir Becoming a Composer, Errollyn Wallen recalls being nine years old and walking to Ridley Road Market with her uncle to buy fruit and vegetables. “I told Uncle Arthur that I could hear ‘all these sounds in my head’ but I didn’t know what to do with them. Uncle Arthur suggested that perhaps I was a composer.”

Little did that young girl — who was born in Belize and brought up in Tottenham, England — know that she would go on to become one of the world’s top twenty most performed living classical composers.

In 2024, Wallen was appointed Master of the King’s Music by His Majesty The King, and in 2025 she was named BBC Classical Music Magazine’s Personality of the Year. This month Wallen is also ChamberFest Cleveland’s composer-in-residence.

Opening the Zoom link from her home in Orkney, I began our conversation by asking how the ChamberFest invitation came about.

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland invites you to spend time in Nate’s World

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by Mike Telin

“I’ve been coming to ChamberFest for a number of years, and it’s always a wonderful thing to come back,” bassist Nathan Farrington said via Zoom from Los Angeles. “I grew up in Columbus but I have a huge family in the Medina area so it also gives me a chance to perform for and reconnect with them.”

On Saturday, June 14 at 7:30 pm at Heights Theater, Nathan Farrington will join pianist Ahmed Alom and drummer Gabriel Globus-Hoenich for a chamber cabaret from “Nate’s World.” The program also includes J.S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E, Mozart’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat, and Errollyn Wallen’s Making Hay. Wallen and composer Michael Frazier will present a pre-concert conversation at 6:30 pm. A cash bar will be available in the lobby. Tickets can be purchased online.

What is Nate’s World? Farrington said that it grew out of the frustration he and his trio members had with the role of performers in traditional classical concerts — the genre doesn’t always do the best job of acknowledging the role of the performer.

[Read more…]

Irish guitarist Alan Mearns to make Guitar Festival debut this weekend

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by Daniel Hathaway

When I asked Armin Kelly, the founder and artistic director of the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival, who he would recommend that I speak to for a preview article this time around, he didn’t miss a beat.

“I think you will find Irish concert classical guitarist, composer, poet, and songwriter Alan Mearns a particularly interesting, well-spoken artist to interview. This will be Alan’s first time to perform in Cleveland, and he will be taking part in a pre-concert discussion with Jonathan Leathwood in a lecture entitled Beyond Transcription, A Conversation with Alan Mearns, on Thursday, June 5, from 6:00 to 7:15 pm, and playing a solo recital on Sunday at 3 pm.

“Alan’s transcriptions of Bach and other composers have electrified audiences and critics far beyond the confines of the classical guitar world. His approach is a fundamentally imaginative one — perhaps not surprising from such a multi-faceted artist. His transcriptions seek to recreate the excitement of the original music in terms of the guitar.”

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: a conversation with pianist/composer Michael Stephen Brown

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by Mike Telin

Season thirteen of ChamberFest Cleveland gets under way on Wednesday, June 11 at 7:30 pm in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

The program — “Lost and Found” —  features J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Keyboards in C major, Felix Mendelssohn’s String Octet, and Michael Stephen Brown’s The Lotos-Eaters (with the composer at the piano). Executive director Jessica Peek Sherwood presents the pre-concert festival welcome at 6:30 pm. Although this concert is sold out, the Festival runs through June 28. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with composer/pianist Michael Stephen Brown on Zoom and began our conversation by asking him if this year would be his second or third visit to ChamberFest.

Michael Stephen Brown: This will be my second, but I’ve known Roman and Diana for a long time, so I look forward to returning. I met them both at the Ravinia Festival, and with Roman being a fellow pianist, we had a lot in common. We became fast friends and loved to play for each other and play four-hand music together. Then he came to Juilliard — I was already there — and we both studied with Robert McDonald.

[Read more…]

Margi Griebling-Haigh’s The Higgler: a conversation with cast members

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by Mike Telin

On Saturday, June 7 at 7:30 pm at Disciples Christian Church, Margi Griebling-Haigh’s tragi-comic chamber opera The Higgler will receive its world premiere, directed by Marla Berg and conducted by Steven Smith.

The production will be repeated on Sunday, June 8 at 3:30 pm. Tickets are available online.

I spoke with Brian Skoog, Elizabeth Frey, and Gabrielle Haigh on Zoom.

Mike Telin: Brian, you’re Harvey Witlow, aka The Higgler. And unlike the leads in Don Giovanni or Pelléas and Mélisande, you actually have the biggest part.

Brian Skoog: Good point — I pretty much don’t leave the stage. Margi said from the beginning that I was going to be in every scene and that turned out to be true.

[Read more…]

Margi Griebling-Haigh’s The Higgler: a conversation with director Marla Berg

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by Mike Telin

The first time that composer Margi Griebling-Haigh read A.E. Coppard’s The Higgler, she knew the short story about life’s missed opportunities was fodder for an opera.

On Saturday, June 7 at 7:30 pm at Disciples Christian Church, Griebling-Haigh’s tragi-comic chamber opera The Higgler will receive its world premiere, directed by Marla Berg and conducted by Steven Smith.

The cast includes tenor Brian Skoog in the title role, soprano Gabrielle Haigh as Mary Sadgrove, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Frey as Mrs. Sadgrove, mezzo soprano Denise Milner Howell as Mrs. Witlow, and soprano Lisl Wangerman as Sophy Dawes. The production will be repeated on Sunday, June 8 at 3:30 pm. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with director Marla Berg by Zoom and began by asking her how she developed the concept for the new work.  [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland & Piano Cleveland partnership brings James (Zijian) Wei back to town

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by Mike Telin

Not only did James (Zijian) Wei win First Prize at the 2024 Cleveland International Piano Competition, he also won four special prizes, one of which was the ChamberFest Cleveland Prize. That prize was awarded for the first time during the 2024 CIPC and was the result of a new partnership between Piano Cleveland and ChamberFest Cleveland.

How did that partnership come about? “Yaron Kohlberg is one of my old friends from Israel, and ChamberFest has been wanting to collaborate with the Piano Competition for a long time,” pianist and ChamberFest co-artistic director Roman Rabinovich said during a Zoom conversation.

“We’re always exploring opportunities to bring our winners back to Cleveland and create partnerships with local organizations,” Piano Cleveland artistic director Yaron Kohlberg said by phone, “and ChamberFest is a natural fit.” [Read more…]

Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival: Armin Kelly reflects on 25 years at the helm

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by Daniel Hathaway with Mike Telin

For a quarter century, the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival has brought some of the brightest stars in the classical guitar world to Cleveland for a weekend of concerts, masterclasses, and lectures. We caught up with Festival founder Armin Kelly on Zoom, who reflected on his 25 years as artistic director.

CC.com: Congratulations on 25 years. What inspired you to start a festival in the year 2000?

Armin Kelly: Even though I’m a dealer in fine classical guitars, my musical training was as a performer.  Although I never really pursued that, I certainly studied hard for 10 or 15 years. 

John Holmquist was then head of the Cleveland Institute of Music’s guitar department — he was a friend, and we started talking. He had a little stipend from CIM to bring artists in, and I was thinking that it’d be nice to start my own small series, maybe a couple of concerts a year. John had a graduate student who was interested in helping with something like this, and we decided to merge our efforts. And so we made a proposal to the then administration at CIM, and they were supportive but wary, as they should have been. [Read more…]

Margi Griebling-Haigh’s The Higgler to receive world premiere

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by Mike Telin

When composer Margi Griebling-Haigh happened across English author A.E. Coppard’s The Higgler while in high school, she knew the short story about life’s missed opportunities was fodder for an opera.

On Saturday, June 7 at 7:30 pm at Disciples Christian Church Griebling-Haigh’s tragi-comic chamber opera The Higgler will receive its world premiere, directed by Marla Berg and conducted by Steven Smith.

The cast includes tenor Brian Skoog in the title role, soprano Gabrielle Haigh as Mary Sadgrove, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Frey as Mrs. Sadgrove, mezzo soprano Denise Milner Howell as Mrs. Witlow, and soprano Lisl Wangerman as Sophy Dawes. The production will be repeated on Sunday, June 8 at 3:30 pm. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with conductor Steven Smith and began by asking him how he prepares to conduct the premiere of a new work.

[Read more…]

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