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Maureen Choi Quartet: Spanish jazz at The Bop Stop

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by Mike Telin

How did a first-generation Korean-American from Ann Arbor, Michigan find her way to Spain and form a Spanish Jazz quartet? “I’m not sure why, but from an early age I have always been drawn to Spanish melodies,” Maureen Choi said by telephone. “Growing up studying classical violin, my favorite pieces were the violin concertos with a little bit of Spanish flair. And when I started studying jazz I discovered Latin rhythms and became intrigued by their complexity.”

On Thursday, June 20 at 7:00 pm at the Bop Stop, you can hear the Maureen Choi Quartet — Maureen Choi (violin), Daniel García (piano), Mario Carrillo (bass), and Michael Olivera (drums) —  performing music from their latest album THEIA. Tickets are available online.  

“I’m proud of this album,” Choi said. “It’s honest, it’s natural and it’s who we are right now.” The ten tracks were recorded in only two days. “I wanted to capture the feeling of a performance, and it sounds very close to how we play live.” [Read more…]

Weather forecast: thunder ahead at ChamberFest

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by Mike Telin

As principal timpanist of the Calgary Philharmonic, Alexander Cohen is accustomed to playing music that has specified pitches. That changed when his sister Diana suggested that he perform Péter Eötvös’ Thunder for solo timpani at this year’s ChamberFest. “This is a very different piece than I am used to playing,” Cohen said during a telephone conversation. “When I first saw it I didn’t even think it was a piece for timpani. At first I balked at the suggestion, but learning it has been a lot of fun.”

On Tuesday, June 25 at 7:30 in CIM’s Mixon Hall, you can hear Cohen perform Eötvös’ intriguing work. The program will also include Liszt’s Orpheus arranged for piano trio by Saint-Saéns, selections from Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, and Erno Dohnányi’s Piano Sextet. Tickets are available online.

Thunder is a single movement from the composer’s larger work Triangel for percussion and ensemble. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: talking Cage with Rabinovich

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by Jarrett Hoffman

This weekend a collection of carefully placed screws, bolts, and pieces of wood, cloth, and rubber will make the Steinway in CIM’s Mixon Hall sound less like a piano and more like an ensemble of percussion instruments.

For that we can thank two men: John Cage for inventing the prepared piano (in which objects placed among the strings alter the sound of the instrument), and Roman Rabinovich for playing Cage’s The Perilous Night on Saturday, June 22 during a 7:30 pm concert titled “Sei Solo (You Are Alone),” the sixth of the season for ChamberFest Cleveland.

The sounds that emerge from the instrument will surprise even the man looking down at the keys. “When you get to the prepared piano, it kind of blows your mind because nothing comes out the way you expect,” Rabinovich, winner of the 12th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, said during a recent interview. “It’s a beautiful effect and a very interesting way to approach the instrument.”

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: a conversation with Young Artist Evren Ozel

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by Mike Telin

From its inception, the nurturing of young artists has been an important part of ChamberFest Cleveland’s mission. That tradition will continue during the Festival’s opening concert on Thursday, June 13 at 7:30 pm in CIM’s Mixon Hall, when pianist Evren Ozel joins clarinetist Franklin Cohen and cellist Peter Wiley for a performance of Beethoven’s Clarinet Trio in B-flat. “It’s an unbelievable opportunity,” Ozel said by telephone. “This is my first time playing that piece and to get to do it with these great masters of their instruments is very exciting.”

Ozel began his musical studies at age three in his hometown of Minneapolis and in 2014 moved to Massachusetts to attend the Walnut Hill School for the Arts. His many achievements include scholarships from the U.S. Chopin Foundation and the YoungArts Foundation. He has performed three times on NPR’s From the Top, and has participated in the Marlboro Music Festival and International Mendelssohn Akademie Leipzig. He was awarded second prize as well as the Mozart and Chopin special prizes at the 2018 Dublin International Piano Competition.

The pianist is also no stranger to Cleveland-area audiences — he was a finalist and audience prize-winner at the 2014 Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition. In 2016 he returned to the Cooper and was awarded second prize. He recently completed his second year at the New England Conservatory.   [Read more…]

Music from The Western Reserve enters a new era under Bognár

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by Mike Telin

For 36 seasons, Music from The Western Reserve has presented chamber music concerts of a variety of genres performed by Northeast Ohio’s brightest talent. The organization is now entering a new era as it embarks on season number 37 with a new general manager, and a new lineup of performances.

After Elisabeth Hugh made the decision to retire following over a decade of leadership, Music from The Western Reserve and its board of directors recently announced that Zsolt Bognár, pianist and host of the award-winning film series Living the Classical Life, would succeed Hugh as Artistic Director and General Manager.

In a press release, Chair of the search committee Linda McDonald said that “Zsolt brings energy and passion to his work. We interviewed so many talented people for the position, but Zsolt’s skills and experience were the best fit as the organization moves to its next stage.” [Read more…]

Bach and electronics: Alexi Kenney explains his ChamberFest solo program

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Even for Alexi Kenney — who has loved Bach since age six and considers the Chaconne from the Second Violin Partita to be one of the greatest pieces of all time — digesting the work is not easy.

That’s partly because it’s often performed as a standalone. “It’s so hard for me to get into the right headspace to hear something that intricate, monumental, and emotionally deep,” the violinist said during a recent phone call on a hot day in New York City.

That thought set the 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient on a quest to put the work in context, and to help audiences feel receptive to what it has to offer. What he devised might surprise you: a solo program that interweaves movements from Bach’s Sonatas No. 1 in g and No. 3 in C with short pieces from the 20th and 21st centuries, some involving electronics, and all leading up to what else but the famous Chaconne. Kenney will present that program, titled “Bach to the Future,” on Tuesday, June 18 at 9:00 pm at The Wine Spot in Cleveland Heights as part of ChamberFest Cleveland.

[Read more…]

June 15 ChamberFest concert prelude to present Golka’s Debussy arrangement

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by Rory O’Donoghue

For pianist Adam Golka, arranging should be organic. Along with his good friend Roman Rabinovitch, he’ll perform his new arrangement of Debussy’s luminous La mer for two pianos on Saturday, June 15 at 6:45 pm in Mixon Hall as a prelude to ChamberFest’s Turning/Tipping Points.

“For many years I was in love with La mer and I yearned for a way to perform it,” Golka said by email, “and though I played around with the idea, it became clear that a two-hand solo version would have too many compromises. There is no way one pianist could bring out all the gorgeous textures and layers of the orchestral score, and each detail is so utterly exquisite.”

La mer premiered in Paris in 1905 to a middling reception, but gained traction over the next few years and secured an enduring place in the orchestral canon following its second Parisian outing in 1908. Its evocative movement titles — “De l’aube à midi sur la mer” (“From dawn to midday on the sea”), “Jeux de vagues” (“Play of the Waves”), and “Dialogue du vent et de la mer” (“Dialogue of the wind and the sea”) — offer ample room for interpretation, and Debussy’s deliberate avoidance of calling it a “symphony” in favor of “three symphonic sketches” all contribute to the work’s enigmatic beauty. [Read more…]

Deng sisters to open for second ChamberFest concert on June 14

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by Rory O’Donoghue

“We’ve been playing together since we were kids – well, not that we aren’t still kids,” 11 year-old violinist Corina Deng said, laughing, in a telephone interview last Friday. She’ll join her 16-year old sister, pianist Athena Deng, for a special performance at 7:15 pm before In Full Swing, this Friday’s 7:30 pm ChamberFest concert in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music. For the two young musicians, familial ties are the secret to their success.

“As sisters, there’s something about our communication that’s really special,” Athena said. “We don’t have any filter in telling each other our real thoughts. Usually at the end, we fully understand what the other wants.” The duo will perform Ravel’s Tzigane and Dvořák’s Romantic Pieces, Op. 75 (Nos. 1, 2, and 3), which they both agree will be an excellent opportunity to showcase their respective talents. [Read more…]

Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival — chatting with Lynn McGrath

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by Mike Telin

Necessity is the mother of invention, and when guitarist Lynn McGrath needed to figure out how to simultaneously play the music and recite the poetry of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, she found a way to do it.

On Friday, June 7 at 6:30 pm in Studio 113 at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Lynn McGrath will present a lecture recital titled “Guitar With Spoken Word.” The program features selections from Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Platero y yo (Platero and I). The free event is presented as part of the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival.

Inspired by the 1914 book by the Nobel Prize-winning author Juan Ramon Jiménez, Platero y yo tells the story of a poet and his silvery gray donkey, the poet’s traveling companion and confidant. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra to embark on European Tour  — chatting with Christine Shih, Ania Lewis, and William Bowers

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by Mike Telin

From June 12 through June 19 The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra will make a seven day, four concert tour to Europe under the direction of Vinay Parameswaran.

The tour will include performances at the Abbey of St. Florian (Sankt Florian, Austria), Golden Hall, Musikverein (Vienna, Austria), Reduta Bratislava Concert Hall (Bratislava, Slovakia), and the MOM Cultural Centre (Budapest, Hungary). This marks the third international tour in COYO’s 33-year history.

The Orchestra will celebrate the tour with a sendoff concert on Friday, June 7 at 8:00 pm at Severance Hall. Parmareswaren will lead John Adams’ The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra, Bartók’s Dance Suite, and Brahms’ Tragic Overture and Symphony No. 2 in D. The concert is free, but tickets are required. [Read more…]

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