by Nicholas Stevens
As ClevelandClassical reported last week, the performances of Handel’s Messiah that Jane Glover led with the Cleveland Orchestra this past weekend marked her hundredth through hundred-and-third times conducting the oratorio. The world can only have a handful of definitive Messiah masters at any given time, and in our moment, she certainly belongs among them. As the Orchestra’s performance under Glover on Thursday, December 6 demonstrated, status as an expert confers a certain privilege: that of taking risks with a perennial favorite. [Read more…]
Two risks, one small and one big, make up the concept behind French Baroque ensemble Les Délices’ latest CD, 
December evokes fantasies of snug fires, family festivities, and winter wonderlands. Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra Apollo’s Fire provides a fitting soundtrack to these daydreams, in their new album 
Some concert themes restrict the number of compositions that would make sense on the program: opera duets about plant life, string quartets after short stories, art songs about fishing. Others leave the field of possibility wide open. When Urban Troubadour billed their December 1 event a “Concert of Creativity,” they thereby allowed for wide stylistic range while banishing only one kind of music: the dull kind. Even with a more practical concern — instrumentation — guiding the curation process, the organizers chose music that shed unusual light on the theme while offering music of contrasting tone, style, and mood.
Is it possible to get too much of The Romeros? Apparently not. For 65 years the venerable guitar quartet, known as “The Royal Family of the Guitar,” has been captivating audiences around the globe with their signature flamenco style, impeccable ensemble, and richly hued sound.
On Friday, November 23, the audience in a packed Severance Hall heard violinist Peter Otto in beautiful performances of Vivaldi’s 
As any brass, woodwind, or low-string player in an orchestra may confess under mild pressure, it can feel profoundly liberating to play music that draws the spotlight away from their colleagues in the violin section, especially for extended periods. Rare though this repertoire may be — Stravinsky favored winds and percussion, and Glass wrote a whole opera without violins — pieces that foreground these parts of the classical instrumentarium do appear at the heart of the canon. Filling the stage for its 60th-Anniversary Gala concert, the Rocky River Chamber Music Society placed conductor James Feddeck at the helm for an event featuring 21 musicians — violists, cellists, bassists, and wind players.