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No Exit: The International Sounds of The Collective

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by Mike Telin

Big things are happening for the innovative new music ensemble No Exit. In June they will embark on a two-week European tour that will include stops in Greece, Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands.

If you’re unable to follow the ensemble to Europe, but want to hear their tour program, you’re in luck. On Wednesday, May 28 in Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art, No Exit will play works by members of The Collective, an international consortium of composers that includes Agata Zubel, Mathew Rosenblum, Douglas Knehans, Spiros Mazis, Amy Kaplan, Constantine Koukias, Edward Smalldone, and Timothy Beyer. The program will be repeated on Friday, May 30 at The Bop Stop and Saturday, May 31 at Heights Arts. All concerts begin at 7:00 pm and are free.

No Exit’s Laura King spoke to Spiros Mazis and Agata Zubel. The interviews are reprinted with the permission of No Exit. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland Season 13 — “Lost and Found”

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by Mike Telin

Programming a summer music festival is not easy. There are so many pieces of the puzzle — not all of them artistic — that need to fit together.

But undaunted, ChamberFest Cleveland artistic directors Diana Cohen, Franklin Cohen, and Roman Rabinovich, along with executive director Jessica Peek Sherwood, have assembled what promises to be the most interesting Festival to date. With the theme of “Lost and Found,” season thirteen runs from June 11–28. Click here for tickets and more information.

[Read more…]

Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival to celebrate 25th anniversary at CIM June 5–8

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by Daniel Hathaway

For a quarter century, Armin Kelly’s Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival has brought some of the brightest stars in the classical guitar firmament to Cleveland for a weekend of concerts, masterclasses, and lectures.

As founder and artistic director Kelly writes in his 2025 invitation:

This June we look forward to sharing art music: solo and ensemble, old and new with old friends and new from around the USA and beyond. Featured events include: 6 concerts by internationally renowned guitarists and supporting musicians, performance premieres, 6 lectures, 5 master classes, private lessons, a demonstration of fine concert guitars, and the 6th annual James Stroud National Classical Guitar Youth Competition. [Read more…]

ENCORE Music & Ideas Festival dances its way to the 10-year mark

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by Stephanie Manning

When you’re excited about something, sometimes all you want to do is get up and dance. Hence the title of this year’s ENCORE–Gates Mills Music & Ideas Festival: “By Leaps & Bounds.”

“ We wanted to have an image of a celebratory dance for our 10th anniversary,” said artistic director Jinjoo Cho in a recent interview. “And the theme also looks forward to the next ten years of our festival. So it just seemed like a perfect double meaning.”

Since 2016, the ENCORE Chamber Music Institute has hosted its annual summer concert series here in Northeast Ohio, featuring performances by local and visiting artists. The Summer Academy, which takes place simultaneously, provides training, mentorship, and performance opportunities for young musicians ages 13 to 26. This year’s Music & Ideas Festival begins on June 6, and tickets are available online. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra Opera and Humanities Festival: “Vox Humana”

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by Mike Telin

We have all been there — sitting near someone who is having a telephone conversation. We don’t know who is on the other end of the call, but we do know the person near you is not pleased — their tone of voice and body language makes that clear.

It’s a similar one-sided telephone conversation that serves as the basis for Francis Poulenc’s forty-minute-long, one-act opera, La voix humaine. This week at Severance Music Center, French soprano Sarah Aristidou will make her Cleveland Orchestra debut in Poulenc’s mono-drama under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst.

The performances — Friday, May 23 at 7:30 pm and Saturday, May 24 at 8:00 pm — are presented as part of The Orchestra’s Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Opera and Humanities Festival. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra: Jenůfa, an opera about reconciliation

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by Mike Telin

The 2025 edition of The Cleveland Orchestra’s Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Opera and Humanities Festival has adopted “Reconciliation” as its theme.

No opera treats the power of forgiveness and reconciliation better than Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa. Set in a rural Moravian village, its intense drama centers around Jenůfa, who gives birth to an illegitimate child, and her stepmother the Kostelnička (the church sacristan), who kills the baby in order to protect Jenůfa’s honor and, more importantly, her future.

On Saturday, May 17 at 7:00 pm in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Janáček’s 1904 opera based on Gabriela Preissová’s play Její pastorkyňa (Her Stepdaughter).

The cast features sopranos Latonia Moore (Jenůfa) and Nina Stemme (Kostelnička) and tenors Samuel Levine (Laca) and Miles Mykkanen (Števa). The production will be repeated on Thursday, May 22 at 7:00 pm and Sunday, May 25 at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Choir celebrates tenth birthday

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by Mike Telin

On Saturday, May 17 at 7:30 pm in Trinity Cathedral, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Choir present “I Believe! Knitted Voices of Justice and Faith,” with conductor Daniel Meyer and soprano Katherine Jolly. The program includes Margaret Bonds’ Credo and Mozart’s “Great” Mass in c. Pay-what-you-wish tickets are available at the door and online.

The concert also marks the culmination of the tenth anniversary season for Cleveland Chamber Choir. We spoke to CCC’s president, Melissa Vandergriff, who helped found the Choir in 2015 along with the ensemble’s first artistic director, Scott MacPherson. We also spoke to ensemble member and executive director Kira McGirr as well as Gregory Ristow, who became the group’s second artistic director in August 2023. [Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra turns fifteen! (Part 2)

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by Mike Telin

On Saturday, May 17 at 7:30 pm in Trinity Cathedral, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Choir present “I Believe! Knitted Voices of Justice and Faith,” with conductor Daniel Meyer and soprano Katherine Jolly. The program includes Margaret Bonds’ Credo and Mozart’s “Great” Mass in c. Pay-what-you-wish tickets are available at the door and online.

The concert also marks the culmination of the fifteenth anniversary season for BlueWater Chamber Orchestra. We spoke to BlueWater founding member and administrator Nancy Patterson and music director Daniel Meyer.

[Read more…]

Broadway School of Music & the Arts: Brass & Bubbly — and a farewell

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by Mike Telin

Since 1983, the Broadway School of Music & the Arts has been providing the Slavic Village neighborhood with one-on-one instrumental and voice lessons, with a focus on community arts education and outreach.

On Friday, May 9 at The Darl Center for the Arts, you can help support the school’s activities by attending Brass & Bubbly. The evening will feature a 7:30 pm concert by the Factory Seconds Brass Trio, made up of Cleveland Orchestra members Jack Sutte (trumpet), Richard Stout (trombone), and Richard King (horn). The program will include music by Jacques Arcadelt, J.S. Bach, Arthur Frackenpohl, Maurice Bardin, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Amy Beach, and Joel Love.

Before and after the concert guests are invited to tour The Darl Center’s personal art collection of owner Darl Schaaf. The event will also celebrate the retirement of Barbara Bachtell, BSMA’s long-time executive director. Click here for tickets and more information.

[Read more…]

Soprano Katherine Jolly, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, and Cleveland Chamber Choir unite for “I Believe!”

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by Stephanie Manning

Since joining the Oberlin Conservatory voice faculty in 2019, soprano Katherine Jolly has kept up with her performing career. But doing so usually takes her outside of Northeast Ohio.

“ I travel a lot for my outside engagements,” she said in a recent interview. So, being the featured soloist on a program with both the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Choir “is pretty special.”

On Saturday, May 17 at 7:30 pm, the two local ensembles will collaborate to present “I Believe! Knitted Voices of Justice and Faith.” The concert at Cleveland’s Trinity Cathedral concludes both groups’ anniversary seasons: the 15th for BlueWater and the 10th for the Chamber Choir. Pay-what-you-wish tickets are available online, and the event will also be live streamed. [Read more…]

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