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Piano Days: Natalie Tenenbaum at the Hanna (Aug. 2)

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By Peter Feher

Piano bars are popular again, declared the New York Post in 2022, and Northeast Ohio got in on the trend earlier this month courtesy of Piano Cleveland.

For the final concert of the presenter’s annual Piano Days series on Saturday, Aug. 2, New York-based performer Natalie Tenenbaum took over Playhouse Square’s intimate Hanna Theatre with a swanky soundtrack that ranged from Frédéric Chopin to Michael Jackson.

The evening, titled “The Piano // Re-Imagined,” felt like a lounge set on steroids, combining genres to crowd-pleasing effect. The only thing missing was cocktail chatter — Tenenbaum held the audience rapt, recital-style, with her tremendous technique at the keyboard.

[Read more…]

Piano Days: Kotaro Fukuma in the Atrium at Cleveland Museum of Art (July 29)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The motto of Piano Cleveland’s Piano Days, “Celebrate piano in all its forms,” included ticketed events as well as many free “Community” performances and happenings.

At noon on Tuesday, July 29, what was described as a sound installation brought Japanese pianist Kotaro Fukuma back to Cleveland, where he had taken first prize in the 2003 Cleveland International Piano Competition, to play an hour-long pop-up concert of Japanese music in the atrium of the Cleveland Museum of Art. (Fukuma also performed a more formal program in CIM’a Mixon Hall later in the week).

The Ames Family Atrium is a wonderful venue for a community concert. Rafael Vinoly’s great enclosed space that connects the old and new parts of the museum invites informal gatherings as well as structured events, and whatever happens there inevitably attracts an audience of passersby as well as planned attendees. [Read more…]

Lisztomania ignites Blossom as Rustioni and Bax dazzle in Cleveland Orchestra debut (Aug. 2)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — The marketing department of The Cleveland Orchestra seized on two works by the 19th-century “rock star” composer and pianist Franz Liszt on its programs at Severance and Blossom to advertise the weekend events as “Lisztomania” — with a nod to “Beatlemania,” the 20th century craze for the music of The Beatles by their adoring fans.

On Saturday night, August 2, at Blossom Music Center, Daniele Rustioni made his Cleveland Orchestra debut, conducting with clarity and joy but also with a flair reminiscent of Liszt’s charismatic presence. His physical expressivity drew a palpable response from the ensemble, an experience of shared energy between conductor, soloist and orchestra that recalled how Liszt could drive his fans into a frenzy.

[Read more…]

Sounds of Bartók, Dohnányi, Liszt shine at Severance Music Center (July 31)

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by Peter Feher

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — It’s quite possible that a record number of soloists have taken the stage at Severance Music Center over the past few weeks.

Thursday night’s Cleveland Orchestra concert — a symphonic showcase from beginning to end that spotlighted every section of the ensemble — should certainly count toward the virtuoso tally.

The playing of dozens of individual orchestra members came brilliantly to the fore in Mandel Concert Hall. Never mind that no guest soloist was featured. Rather, the evening’s prodigiousness originated with the lineup of composers, expertly channeled by visiting conductor Christoph Koncz.

[Read more…]

The 5 Browns: five pianos, 440 keys, and a visit to “The Edge of The World” (July 20)

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by Stephanie Manning

Music for five pianos is rare enough — so The 5 Browns knew that if they wanted to play a concerto together, they’d need to create their own. That’s exactly what the sibling quintet achieved in 2011, when the Ravinia Festival commissioned composer Nico Muhly to write The Edge of the World.

For their visit to Cleveland, the group gave their program the same title, with the theme of exploring uncharted territory. On July 20, they treated the audience at Playhouse Square’s Mimi Ohio Theatre to plenty of familiar tunes. But the visual and auditory spectacle of their performance, which opened Piano Cleveland’s 2025 Piano Days series, was the real draw.

Although they have kept their name the same, the group is technically now The 5 ‘B’s — four Browns and a Beus. Stephen Beus joined the Brown siblings Desirae, Deondra, Gregory, and Melody after Ryan Brown’s departure in 2023. But just by watching them play together, it’s impossible to tell Beus isn’t a Brown himself. The quintet’s synchronization never faltered during the almost two-hour program, even during Muhly’s challenging concerto.

[Read more…]

Utsav Lal at Piano Days: Indian classical music with new interpretations (July 22)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Pianist Utsav Lal’s solo concert at the Lorraine and Bill Dodero Center for the Performing Arts in Gates Mills on Tuesday evening July 22 offered “Indian classical music reimagined for the Western grand piano.” The experience was a gradual one: you became aware of a rare sensual and spiritual atmosphere — and then, if you allowed it to, a gently meditative state overtook you.

One of Indian classical music’s defining traits is the irregularity of intervals and pitches — something you might hear from a sitarist or a vocalist — yielding a broader expressive palette. To fully appreciate Lal’s work, one had to set that convention aside and receive his Western reinterpretation on its own terms.

[Read more…]

Cooper International Piano Competition:
Final Round with The Cleveland Orchestra (July 24)

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by Daniel Hathaway

After several days of preliminary rounds at the Oberlin Conservatory, the number of contestants in the 2025 Cooper International Piano Competition was suddenly reduced from 20 to six semi-finalists who advanced to perform concertos on Tuesday, July 22 accompanied by a second pianist. And then there were three.

On Thursday evening, July 24, the competition moved to Severance Music Center, where the trio of contestants who had advanced to the final round repeated their concertos, this time with The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Samy Rachid. It was an impressive evening of music making.

We shared our impressions of their playing during the concerto round on Tuesday. On Thursday, they would perform under very different conditions. How did they interact with a full symphony orchestra? The answer — brilliantly. [Read more…]

Guest conductor Jonathon Heyward presents captivating program in Cleveland Orchestra debut (July 26)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — The July 26 concert at Blossom Music Center marked the exciting Cleveland Orchestra debut of conductor Jonathon Heyward — the music director of the Baltimore Symphony and the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center. His program should have captivated even the most distant lawn loungers with works by Dvořák and Beethoven, as well as a recent concerto by London-born composer Anna Clyne, who now resides in the United States.

The centerpiece of the evening was Clyne’s Glasslands, a haunting, kaleidoscopic concerto for soprano saxophone, written for the 27-year-old British saxophonist Jess Gillam, who premiered it with the Detroit Symphony in 2023 and performed it on Saturday with beauty and authority.

[Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: The Cousin from Batavia (July 23)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Last seen in Wooster in 2002, The Cousin from Batavia (1921) — with its tangle of mistaken identities, impromptu romance, and Southeast Asian impostures — may be less familiar to English-speaking audiences than other Golden Age operettas. But Ohio Light Opera’s sweet-tempered, farcical revival at Freedlander Theatre on July 23 proved charming enough to win over even the staunchest devotees of the present-day and plausible. The late operetta scholar Richard Traubner rendered the text into vivid English.

Composed by Eduard Künneke with a witty libretto by Hermann Haller and “Rideamus” — “Let us laugh,” the Latin pseudonym of German-Jewish satirist and lawyer Fritz Oliven — Batavia blends the lyricism of Viennese operetta with the slapstick of farce. Wilson Southerland’s crisp conducting and the orchestra’s fine playing brought out all the color and buoyancy in Künneke’s sparkling score. [Read more…]

Blind Injustice: six lives wrongly incarcerated, one story of hope and resilience (July 11) 

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by Daniel Hathaway

Opera can be a powerful medium for documenting social injustice, especially when the plot hits close to home. Case in point: the six wrongly convicted individuals in Northeast Ohio whose stories are told in David Cote’s and Scott Davenport Richards’ 80+-minute work, Blind Injustice. 

The opera, premiered by Cincinnati Opera in 2019 and subsequently produced in Colorado, New Jersey, and New York, was presented by Chagrin Arts on July 11 at the Outcalt Theatre in Playhouse Square.

The tightly-constructed, one-act music drama tells the real life stories of Rickey Jackson, Nancy Smith, Clarence Elkins, and the East Cleveland 3 — teenagers Laurese Glover, Eugene Johnson, and Derrick Wheatt — all imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. The opera follows each of them from their conviction to their eventual release through the work of the Innocence Project. [Read more…]

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