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Re•Views

Cleveland Museum of Art debuts Cenk Ergün’s Formare (May 8)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland audiences had their first live encounters with the music of Turkish-born composer Cenk Ergün in March of 2016, when the JACK Quartet premiered his commissioned works Sonare and Celare in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Ergün’s second appearance at the Museum earlier this month came in the form of a Cleveland Foundation Creative Fusion project. On Wednesday evening, May 8, the composer (seated on the pavement above) unveiled his hour-long Formare, turning the Ames Family Atrium into a vast sound installation. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: Hollingsworth House Concert (May 16)

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by Timothy Robson

The third and final house concert of ChamberFest Cleveland’s spring season took place on May 16 at the home of Mark and Sue Hollingsworth in Shaker Heights. The central “great room,” with its two-story ceiling, surrounding mezzanine, and grand staircase, was a perfect venue for the several dozen people in attendance, who flanked the performers on three sides. The ambiance was intimate but not oppressive. [Read more…]

Quire Cleveland — “Ave Maria: England’s Rose” at St. Peter (May 5)

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by Daniel Hathaway

To close out their first season under the leadership of Jay White, Quire Cleveland presented “Ave Maria: England’s Rose,” two concerts of early English church music devoted to the cult of the Virgin Mary. On Sunday afternoon, May 5, Quire’s commanding performances reveled in the sumptuous acoustic of Historic St. Peter Church in downtown Cleveland. Appropriately, a statue of the Virgin gazed on nearby. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Jurowski & Gluzman (May 3)

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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…]

Cleveland Opera Theater: La traviata at the Maltz (April 28)

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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…]

Ars Futura on the John Knox series (May 3)

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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…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra tells tales at Plymouth (May 4)

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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.

[Read more…]

CityMusic Cleveland: Verdi Requiem at Maltz Performing Arts Center (May 2)

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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…]

Chagrin Arts: Barrick Stees fuses art and music (Apr. 26)

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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.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Judicaël Perroy at Plymouth (Apr. 27)

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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…]

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