by Daniel Hathaway
There’s something about a Stradivarius violin that inspires a particularly intimate relationship with the hands that hold it. Vadim Gluzman talked about playing the 1690 instrument once owned by Leopold Auer in an interview: Words cannot describe how wonderful this instrument is. It makes me run 15 times faster, dive 15 times deeper. When I first picked up this violin and notes emanated from my bow, I understood that my life had changed. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
While opera often treats its audiences to spectacle on a grand scale, what really makes the art form take flight is the melding of distinguished singing with excellent acting and staging. Those elements came together beautifully in Cleveland Opera Theater’s production of Verdi’s La traviata on Sunday afternoon, April 28 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center. A strong cast and a fine chamber orchestra joined director Scott Skiba and conductor Domenico Boyagian in bringing the story of Violetta Valéry to vibrant life on an engagingly human scale. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
The history of any art form consists of generalizations, some useful, others reductive, many both. Take classical music: hastily scribbled timelines have too often redrawn the vast panorama of postwar composition into a knot of abstract forms. Advocates of contemporary composition and performance have often pushed back on this stereotype with words, but in a recent concert, Cleveland’s Ars Futura ensemble emphasized the range of its repertoire also in deed. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
BlueWater Chamber Orchestra entered an exciting second era with the final concert of its 9th season on Saturday, May 4 at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. Last month, conductor Daniel Meyer was named the orchestra’s artistic director, so now this important Northeast Ohio institution can chart a course into its second decade.
by Nicholas Stevens
Strange things happen to art amid mass violence. During World War II, Beethoven’s Ninth resounded at festivals in honor of mass murderers, who were proud to count the composer as a compatriot. Yet elsewhere, Allied soldiers were using the opening motif of Beethoven’s Fifth — three short notes, one long: Morse code for the letter V — to signify victory. So it was that, in 1943, the Nazis forced the musicians of the Theresienstadt concentration camp to perform Verdi’s Requiem for an audience of human rights inspectors, before shipping them off to gas chambers at Auschwitz. So it is that last week, CityMusic Cleveland honored the memory of those musicians and all of those lost in the Holocaust, with a performance of that very piece. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
Cleveland Orchestra assistant principal bassoon Barrick Stees has had a longtime love of visual art that he finally turned into a musical event — “A Fusion of Art and Music with Barry Stees & Friends” at Chagrin Falls United Methodist Church on Friday, April 26. As part of the Chagrin Arts Performing Arts Series, Stees paired delightful chamber music with the fascinating art that inspired it, projected for all to see.
by David Kulma
The final concert of the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s International Series at Plymouth Church on Saturday, April 27 kept the audience on its toes in the best way possible. The fantastic guitar virtuoso Judicaël Perroy chose an unexpected route through his repertoire, nevermind the printed program. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
Among all the chronically underrepresented instruments and voice types in the classical tradition, the harp suffers from some of the most persistent pigeonholing. Stereotyped as a shorthand for the dreamy, magical, and aquatic, its repertoire spans more time and covers more aesthetic ground than such associations may imply. In a recent concert on Trinity Cathedral’s Brownbag Concert Series, harpist Parker Ramsay presented a packed hall with sounds both expected and surprising. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
How can a faith mourn its greatest loss while still gesturing toward the resurrection that follows — and set it all to music? Last year, Trinity Cathedral’s choristers and instrumentalists presented Arvo Pärt’s Passio on their annual Good Friday concert. A vast, austere retelling of Christ’s Passion, the work exerts an almost grueling gravity. This year, however, Trinity artistic director and organist Todd Wilson presented not a monument, but a colorful mosaic of grief, farewell, and hope in the form of two English Requiem settings. [Read more…]
by Nia Burger
Special to ClevelandClassical.com
The Spring Quartet — bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding, saxophonist Joe Lovano, drummer Jack DeJohnette, and pianist Leo Genovese — was warmly welcomed to the Finney stage by a sold-out audience on April 17. The show, part of the Artist Recital Series and the 30th anniversary of Oberlin’s Jazz Studies program, started with a fitting tune titled Spring Day written and led by Lovano. Each player was individually brilliant in personal style, and yet they also melded seamlessly into a powerfully dynamic quartet. [Read more…]