by Daniel Hathaway
Sunny 18th-century music — some of it inspired by Nature, which was busy drenching Akron Baroque attendees on their way to Westminster Presbyterian Church — worked its magic on Sunday afternoon, September 9. The 13-member, modern instrument ensemble led by concertmaster Alan Bodman joined a fine roster of soloists in spirited performances of music by Vivaldi, Telemann, and Handel that would have lifted the most dampened spirits. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
New school years in conservatories of music don’t often begin with big projects that bring multiple faculty members together around a single topic, but violin professor Sibbi Bernhardsson may have started something at Oberlin with his World War I festival last weekend. Two gallery presentations, four concerts, and two panel presentations on Saturday and Sunday, September 8 and 9 involved some twenty Oberlin faculty musicians and thirteen speakers from Oberlin and beyond in “Creative Arts & Music in the Shadow of War — Commemorating the Centenary of WWI.” [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
Pianist Jacob Greenberg, a longtime member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, explores the intersections between Debussy and the Second Viennese School in his latest album, the sprawling, two-disc Hanging Gardens, released on July 20 on the New Focus Recordings label. The opening pairing perfectly illustrates the focus of the album: these composers’ shared sense of musical passion. Although Debussy’s “Sarabande” from Pour le Piano and Berg’s Op. 1 Sonata in some ways inhabit completely different worlds, at the heart of both is an intensity that ranges from ecstasy to deep struggle. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
Nearing the end of this summer, which included the third edition of the Milt Hinton Bass Institute at Oberlin, we look back a year earlier to a solo album with important connections both to the Conservatory and to the legendary Hinton himself. Groove Dreams, released on the Oberlin Music label in May of 2017, spotlights a special performer and a special instrument: Oberlin professor Peter Dominguez and the 18th-century Italian bass which Hinton played throughout his career. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
On Friday, August 31 with a jam-packed lawn and many toy lightsabers, The Cleveland Orchestra’s final Blossom Music Center program with assistant conductor Vinay Parameswaran was a certifiable hit. This first of three screenings of George Lucas’s original Star Wars film with live orchestra showed off the many virtues of both John Williams’s iconic score and the Orchestra’s luxurious playing, most notably the power and grandeur of the brass. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
All musical instruments are an extension of the human voice. Even the best keyboard, string, and percussion players know how to create musical lines that breathe. While wind and brass players are keenly aware of how to use air to inflect a myriad of emotions, there is not a lot of music that requires them to incorporate their voices with their instruments. On their new recording, titled SaxoVoce, (to be released on September 7) the inventive saxophone duo Ogni Suono — Noa Even and Phil Pierick — take on the challenge of playing and vocalizing during seven eclectic works. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
The American political landscape has broadened over the past few years to include socialist and fascist ideas previously unthinkable in the public sphere. Programming works from the 1930s, another time of torrent, The Cleveland Orchestra and guest conductor Adrien Perruchon gave their August 25 concert at Blossom Music Center an unusual political saliency. The performance of Orff’s Carmina Burana occurred fifty years to the date when it was performed during Blossom’s inaugural season (photo above).
by Nicholas Stevens
Any concert that features a first-rate ensemble, with a respected and rising conductor at the helm and a renowned soloist as a guest, will make for a great evening’s worth of music-making. However, some events seem to invite the audience to levitate in their seats, absorbed and enchanted. Jonathan Cohen drew extraordinary sounds from The Cleveland Orchestra in one such concert last week. When pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout joined in, the assembled musicians achieved something like transcendence.
by Robert Rollin
On Sunday evening, August 19 at Blossom, Randall Craig Fleischer led The Cleveland Orchestra in “Frank & Ella: The Music of Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra,” featuring soprano Capathia Jenkins and singer/pianist Tony DeSare in songs that Ella and Frank made famous. Jenkins has a gorgeous, well-controlled voice. DeSare’s talented rhythm section supported his wonderful piano playing. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
As Yo-Yo Ma stood, wincing and stretching to applause after playing Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3, the wonder of the situation hit home. Well over 10,000 people — maybe twice that number, depending exactly how many picnickers had crowded onto the lawn — had gathered at an outdoor pavilion on a Sunday evening to hear a continuous 140-minute recital. These thousands of paying visitors had driven miles from their homes to hear a single musician play a single set of 300-year-old dance suites on a single instrument, alone onstage with nothing but blue lights as a backdrop. If anyone ever tries to tell you that classical music is dead or dying, then that person is trying to sell you their latest book. [Read more…]