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Pianist Yuja Wang, Cleveland Orchestra do Tchaikovsky justice, despite pre-concert surprise (Mar. 22)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Pianist Yuja Wang is a dazzler. She has a way of dressing, of taking the stage, and of bowing that bespeaks confidence and star quality. Add to those a suspenseful entrance (a few minutes overdue), apparent nonchalance at a last-minute conductor change — assistant conductor Daniel Reith in for music director Franz Welser-Möst — and an astonishing keyboard technique, and you get excitement.

The audience was buzzing with anticipation on Saturday evening March 22 at Severance Music Center for Wang’s appearance with the Cleveland Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

To be fair, the delayed entrance likely had more to do with a needed meeting between pianist and conductor before performing the work together. Reith, who received word of the change only two hours before the concert, deserves much of the glory for what followed.

[Read more…]

International Contemporary Ensemble returns to Oberlin (Mar. 14)

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by Stephanie Manning

The International Contemporary Ensemble hasn’t been back on the Warner Concert Hall stage in a number of years, but seeing them there somehow feels right. Founded at Oberlin Conservatory in 2001, the group has retained strong ties to the school, making their March 14 appearance notable as one of the few homecomings since the ensemble’s founding.

The Friday night concert featured eight artists from ICE’s roster, including four Oberlin alumni, two current faculty members, and twelve Conservatory students. Titled “Composing While Black: Volume I” and curated by the Ensemble’s artistic director George Lewis, the program featured music by people familiar to both the Oberlin community and Northeast Ohio at large. [Read more…]

CityMusic Chamber Orchestra at Fairmount Church (Mar. 20)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The connective tissue of CityMusic Chamber Orchestra’s varied program on Thursday, March 20 — a miscellany of music by Caroline Shaw, Felix Mendelssohn, and Franz Schubert — seems to be that there was none, other than the desire to play these disparate and individually charming pieces. I attended the concert at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights and felt myself fortunate to be in the company of such fine musicians.

Annunziata Tomaro, who has guest conducted for CityMusic before, showed herself to be an engaging presence at the podium. If it were up to me — which it isn’t — Tomaro would immediately be engaged as the orchestra’s next music director. She’s that good.

[Read more…]

Suburban Symphony Orchestra celebrates 70 years (Mar. 16)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Northeast Ohio is home to an astounding number of community orchestras and choruses, many with proud histories that go back decades. To attend a concert by such a plucky band is to experience the excitement and joy of the performers, and to see their seriousness of purpose realized.

On Sunday, March 16 in Mandel Hall at Severance Music Center, the Suburban Symphony celebrated its 70th anniversary. Under the direction of music director Domenico Boyagian, they did so in style with performances of Sibelius’ Karelia Suite and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (“Choral”).

The Orchestra was joined onstage by two other longstanding musical organizations: the Western Reserve Chorale, (David Gilson, artistic director) and the West Shore Chorale (Michael Lisi, artistic director). All told, there were around 240 smiling faces gathered onstage.

[Read more…]

No Exit: Works by Greg D’Alessio at Trinity Cathedral (Mar. 13)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

In a program that was partly retrospective and partly world premiere, works by Greg D’Alessio compelled rapt attention at Trinity Cathedral on Thursday, March 13. And the performances by No Exit sparkled.

D’Alessio, who teaches at Cleveland State University, makes frequent use of electronic sounds, either in isolation, or in combination with traditional instruments — echoes of Mario Davidovsky, perhaps, his teacher at Columbia. Film is also a favorite medium, affording flights of imagination both visual and auditory.

The opening work was the video, A Brief Word from the Present Moment (2025). Moving images and a hyperactive soundtrack combined for what the composer called, “a kind of hallucinatory newscast,” commenting with wide-angled perspective on recent and historical events. An AI-manipulated  projection of No Exit Artistic Director Tim Beyer’s talking head narrated, as ancient scenery, medieval paintings, and the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, paraded past. Combined with frantic music, the effect was unnerving, but partly nostalgic, too — like watching 1980s MTV.

[Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra Continues its 15th Anniversary with Covenant Concert (Mar. 1)

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by Daniel  Hathaway

When BlueWater Chamber Orchestra made its debut at the Breen Center on September  12, 2010, its founder and conductor Carlton Woods introduced the new ensemble with an ambitious program of works that included Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, Howard Hanson’s Serenade for Flute, Harp and Strings, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Romance in F for violin and orchestra, Edward Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, and Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera’s Variaciones Concertantes.

In a review of that performance, I wrote

The orchestral showpiece of the afternoon was Ginastera’s Concert Variations, described by Woods as “the South American Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.” Beginning with Kent Collier’s big cello solo accompanied by harpist Jody Guinn, the work showcased the fine solo talents of violist Laura Shuster, clarinetist Alix Reinhardt, concertmaster Kenneth Johnston, hornist Ken Wadenpfuhl and bassist Ann Gilbert, as well as the fine ensemble acumen of the rest of the orchestra.

[Read more…]

Guitarist Marko Topchii cheerfully breaks the rules at CCGS (Mar. 8)

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by Stephanie Manning

Spend a few minutes with Marko Topchii, and you’ll know he’s a performer that likes to bend convention. The guitarist took the stage at the Maltz Performing Arts Center on March 8 wearing a baby blue suit jacket over a graphic tee, before promptly announcing that he was adding another piece to the program. Instead of kicking things off with Frederic Hand’s Undercurrents, his first selection was a brief, reflective work called Ground, written by his mother.

Speaking from the stage with commentary that was both personable and concise, Topchii charmingly contextualized the music on his extensive program. Undercurrents, which he got to shortly after his opening shakeup, was the commissioned work for the Guitar Foundation of America’s 2023 Competition — an event where Topchii came out on top with the grand prize.

Thanks to his win, the Ukrainian guitarist has been touring the U.S. almost nonstop since September, with two months left to go. But at his visit to the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, his relaxed speaking and focused performance belied the inevitable stressors of that schedule. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra delivers powerful performances of Beethoven, Janáček (Mar. 13)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — This week’s Cleveland Orchestra programs were to have featured soprano Asmik Grigorian in Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs. But when Grigorian withdrew last week for personal reasons, the focus changed to works by Beethoven while keeping intact the original theme of darkness into light.

On Thursday, March 13, music director Franz Welser-Möst wasted no time arriving at what would usually be a concert’s main event. The very first notes that rang out in Severance Music Center formed the iconic four-note motif known around the world — the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

Yes, one of the most famous classical music pieces ever written opened the program instead of closing it. It’s an unconventional programming choice — but after all, Beethoven’s Fifth is a piece that needs little introduction. At least not today.

[Read more…]

Tuesday Musical: the show must go on (Mar. 4)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This will be one of the stories the Isidore Quartet will tell in their dotage. At about 10 pm, the night before their Tuesday Musical performance in Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall on March 4, the quartet’s violist Devin Moore came down with a case of strep throat.

As might only happen in a region brimming with musical talent, Eva Kennedy — violist of the Callisto Quartet and a former classmate of Isidore violinist Phoenix Avalon — happened to be in Columbus and was available. The next morning, Kennedy drove up to Akron to rehearse with Isidore and pianist Jeremy Denk. As they say, the show must go on.

Despite the disappointment of half of the program needing to be changed, the substituted works — four Bach fugues (from The Art of Fugue) and Mozart’s great String Quartet No. 19 in C, “Dissonance,” K.465 — made for a surprisingly agreeable switcharoo. The scheduled Brahms Piano Quintet in f remained in place. (If and when the Isidore returns to Northeast Ohio, I hope they’ll re-program Gabriella Smith’s amazing Carrot Revolution.)

[Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Choir & HaZamir: music by Rossi at West Shore Unitarian Church (Mar. 2)

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by Daniel Hathaway

“I spent a week in Mantua one afternoon” sounds like a standup comic’s putdown of a hopelessly boring city. No such thing on Sunday afternoon, March 2, when Gregory Ristow, the Cleveland Chamber Choir, and members of HaZamir Cleveland youth choir, presented “Synagogue and Salon” at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church.

Conceived as a week-long walking tour through Mantova, the program was designed to better understand the complex musical world of Jewish violinist and composer Salamone Rossi. During their virtual progress through the Italian city that was ruled for 400 years by the wealthy Gonzaga family, the audience heard some 30 pieces of music by Rossi and his contemporaries, as well as examples of the popular and folk music of the streets, all excellently performed by the 24-voice choir and 8-piece instrumental ensemble of bowed and plucked strings with percussion and chamber organ.

Rossi, who lived from around 1570 to around 1628 — on the cusp of the Renaissance and Baroque periods — produced a vast quantity of music. [Read more…]

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