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“Tallis Through the Looking Glass” with The Thirteen Choir at St. John’s

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by Daniel Hathaway

Matthew Robertson’s The Thirteen Choir will visit the Helen D. Schubert Concert Series at St. John’s Cathedral on Wednesday, October 23 at 7:30 pm with its program “Tallis Through the Looking Glass.” A freewill offering will be received.

Robertson, based in Washington D.C., started his ensemble the better part of a decade ago with special repertory considerations in mind. “There are not many American professional choirs, and even fewer with an interest in singing all kinds of music,” he said in a recent telephone conversation. “My interests are more kaleidoscopic.”

Singers are drawn from a nationwide network of choral ensembles, chosen for each program based on the repertoire. And the name? Robertson, no triskaidekaphobiac, had America’s original colonies in mind in calling his ensemble The Thirteen Choir, but also found that twelve singers (plus himself) constituted the most practical format.

The Thirteen’s Cleveland program is fascinating. “It’s chiastic,” Robertson said. “Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia and Tallis’ votive antiphon Gaude gloriosa Dei Mater are the bookends. [Read more…]

Women unite on Trinity’s
Brownbag Concert Series

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by Mike Telin

When soprano Kristine Caswelch and mezzo-soprano Kira McGirr were given carte blanche to create a concert for Trinity Cathedral’s Brownbag series, it took a little time for them to figure out what direction their program would take. Then over the summer the two got together over coffee and came to the realization that, like many women, they’re not happy about much of what’s going on in the world right now — and a lot of great music has been written about being angry.

On Wednesday, October 23 at 12:00 pm at Trinity Cathedral, Caswelch and McGirr, assisted by pianist Todd Wilson, will perform a concert of works that explore a range of human emotions from anger and fear to humor and sisterhood. The concert is free, but a freewill offering will be received. Audiences are invited to bring lunches or purchase one for $7.

During a sitdown interview, Caswelch and McGirr said they wanted to include some early music on the program. “The mad songs from Henry Purcell’s era are so cool,” McGirr said. “They’re about women who are upset over some aspect of love. But at the same time a lot of these women are not just angry, they’re really mad — as in crazy. [Read more…]

Jerusalem String Quartet
returns to CCMS Series

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by Daniel Hathaway

The Jerusalem String Quartet, now beginning its 24th season together, will give the second concert of the 70th season of the Cleveland Chamber Music Society at Plymouth Church on Tuesday October 22 at 7:30 pm. Their program includes works by Mozart, Korngold, and Shostakovich.

One of CCMS’s most frequently-invited ensembles, the Jerusalem Quartet has visited the series once a year since 2017, and once every other year from 2010 through 2015. In addition to Cleveland, the ensemble’s U.S. tours this season will include concerts in Houston, Durham, Baltimore, West Orange New Jersey, and New York, and a return to Boston’s Celebrity Series.

The Quartet’s program on  October 22 begins with Mozart’s Quartet in d, K. 421, one of the set of six quartets the composer dedicated to his mentor, Joseph Haydn. For someone who normally composed rapidly and with little effort — Mozart’s sister noted that he often concocted whole pieces in his head while playing games, then sat down and simply wrote them out — these works inspired the composer to produce music at a level of perfection unusual even for him. [Read more…]

Zohn Collective and La Coperacha
at Cleveland Museum of Art

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by Mike Telin

It is often impossible to say why a work of art captivates you to the point of becoming an obsession. Such is the case for composer Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon and Juan Rulfo’s novel Pedro Páramo. In his program notes for his scenic cantata Comala, Zohn-Muldoon writes: “To explain why Pedro Páramo moves me so deeply is beyond my capabilities as an essayist.” 

On Friday, October 18 at 7:30 pm in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium, the Zohn Collective will present “Portals,” which pairs Comala with the world premiere of Daniel Pesca’s Nocturnes, a setting of four poems by Irving Feldman. Conducted by Timothy Weiss, performers include soprano Tony Arnold and tenor Zach Finkelstein, with La Coperacha Puppet Company. The performance is part of CMA’s Performing Arts Series. Tickets are available online.

“This is a piece I’ve been composing on and off for all of my adult life,” Zohn-Muldoon said of Comala during a telephone interview. “Every time it gets performed I add a new theme — I just finished one that will be premiered on this occasion — so now it’s gotten very large.”

Comala was premiered by The Furious Band at the Festival Música y Escena in México City in 2001. [Read more…]

Akron Symphony:
“Symphonic Shakespeare”

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Akron Symphony music director Christopher Wilkins has long had an interest in theater. “I’ve kept my eye out for theater-related projects for years and years and years,” he said during an interview.

One of those projects was Mendelssohn’s incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream interleaved with a significant chunk of Shakespeare’s play, a production ClevelandClassical.com reviewed in 2014. “I’ve also done The Tempest with the complete incidental music by Sibelius,” Wilkins said. “But these next two pieces are knockouts.”

Those would be Shostakovich’s Hamlet Film Suite and William Walton’s Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario, which make up two-thirds of “Symphonic Shakespeare,” the Orchestra’s program this Saturday, October 19 at 8:00 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall.

[Read more…]

Augustin Hadelich makes
Severance Hall debut

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by Mike Telin

Violinist Augustin Hadelich is no stranger to The Cleveland Orchestra. In July of 2014 he wowed audiences with his performance of the Sibelius Concerto at Blossom Music Center. His August 2017 interpretation of the Dvořák Concerto was a highlight of the Blossom season.

On Thursday, October 17 at 7:30 pm, Hadelich will make his Severance Hall debut with Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 2. The concert, under the direction of the young Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä, making his Severance debut as well, will also include Messiaen’s Les Offrande oubliées and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. The program will be repeated on Friday, October 18 and Saturday, October 19 at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

Hadelich has always been enjoyable to talk to. But when his performance and travel schedule, along with time zone differences, made a telephone interview impossible, he suggested that I send a few questions by email.

Mike Telin: Please tell me your thoughts on the Prokofiev Concerto.

Augustin Hadelich: It is one of the most exciting and beloved violin works of the 20th century. Prokofiev was a storyteller, and this piece contains just about every character, from the lyrical and pastoral to the manic. [Read more…]

Cleveland Museum of Art:
Fretwork and Michelangelo

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Fretwork, the famous England-based viol consort, will return to Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art next week for a program inspired by the Museum’s current exhibit “Michelangelo: Mind of the Master.”

On Wednesday, October 23 at 7:30 pm, Fretwork will play “Music from the Age of Michelangelo,” a program based on musical developments that occurred during that artist’s life. One was the emergence of the violas da gamba, and the trend of homogeneous ensembles.

Another was a book of music published in 1501 by Ottaviano Petrucci that represented a major technological breakthrough in the field of printing. The Harmonice Musices Odhecaton (“One Hundred Harmonic Pieces of Music”) was the first music book to be printed using movable type, and contained works for three to six parts — mostly vocal pieces, but without text — by major composers of the time.

[Read more…]

Dark Horse Consort joins Apollo’s Fire to explore “Echoes of Venice” 

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by Daniel Hathaway

Turning away at the beginning of the 17th century from the Flemish polyphonic tradition — which had long reigned in the private chapel of the Doges in Venice — San Marco organist Giovanni Gabrieli took advantage of the church’s multiple choir lofts to invent a new polychoral style that allowed for complex spatial effects, including echoes.

Probably more than a few audience members attending Apollo’s Fire’s “Echoes of Venice” performances this week were first introduced to Gabrieli’s opulent music through a famous old recording by organist E. Power Biggs, the Gregg Smith Singers, the Texas Boys Choir, and the Edward Tarr Brass Ensemble — who performed on modern trumpets and trombones.

In four concerts this week, Apollo’s Fire and Apollo’s Singers will join the Dark Horse Consort, a Boston-based ensemble comprising period strings, cornetti, and sackbuts, to recreate the sounds that might actually have bounced back and forth under the seven domes of St. Mark’s in 1615. That was the year Gabrieli published his 14-part motet for three choirs, In Ecclesiis. [Read more…]

CityMusic Cleveland:
a conversation with the
new music director, Amit Peled

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by Jarrett Hoffman 

All it took was one visit.

“Last time I was in Cleveland, what was really special for me was the deep connection I had with the orchestra right away,” cellist and conductor Amit Peled said during a telephone interview.

On that trip this past May, he joined CityMusic Cleveland as soloist in Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1, and the relationship he felt wasn’t that of soloist and accompanists. “It was really music-making in an equal way,” he said. “That’s what I liked about the orchestra from the time we spent together, and that’s what I want to preserve. I think we both felt a connection, and that’s why it resulted in this relationship.”

In July, it was announced that Peled would be the next music director of CityMusic, while his predecessor Avner Dorman has stepped into the role of music director emeritus. Peled will begin his first season — the ensemble’s 16th — by leading the orchestra in free performances October 17-20 in Beachwood, Willoughby Hills, Slavic Village, and Lakewood (details below).

[Read more…]

Kirill Gerstein to give Cleveland premiere of Thomas Adès Piano Concerto

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by Mike Telin 

A new piano concerto is always an occasion, but the premiere of Thomas Adès’ Concerto, performed by pianist Kirill Gerstein and the Boston Symphony under the direction of the composer, has caused critics and audiences to sit up and take note. Following the New York premiere of the work, Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times wrote that the Concerto was

written for Gerstein, who exhilaratingly dispatched this joyous and audacious piece’s formidable solo part… This breathless, 20-minute concerto, structured in three essentially traditional movements (fast, slow, fast), comes across as zesty and accessible. But don’t be fooled. Just below the surface, the music sizzles with modernist harmonies, fractured phrases, gaggles of counterpoint and lyrical strands that keep breaking into skittish bits. The finale is a riotous, clattering, assaultive romp. I can’t wait to hear it again.

This weekend Kirill Gerstein will play the Cleveland premiere of Adès’ Piano Concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Alan Gilbert. The program also includes J.S. Bach’s Suite No. 3 and Brahms’ Symphony No. 3. The Severance Hall concerts take place on Friday, October 11 at 11:00 am (no Bach) and 8:00 pm, and Saturday, October 12 at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available here.

[Read more…]

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