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Re•Views

ACRONYM in The Battle of Vienna on Pipino Series in Youngstown (Oct. 5)

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by Robert Rollin

On Friday, October 5, the Baroque string band ACRONYM presented The Battle of Vienna in Youngstown’s Ford Family Recital Hall on Youngstown State University’s inaugural Donald P. Pipino Performing Arts Series. The program was a mélange of inventive 17th-century works employing novel techniques brought by Italian composers to the German-speaking lands, including Venetian polychoral effects. ACRONYM’s consistently fine intonation and exceptional ensemble were nothing short of amazing all evening. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire in Mozart and Haydn at the Cleveland Museum of Art (Oct. 12)

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by Timothy Robson

Jeannette Sorrell and her intrepid orchestra Apollo’s Fire performed Friday evening, October 12, in a somewhat unusual venue — for them — Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, in somewhat unusual repertoire — again, for them — Mozart and Haydn. After listening for years to Apollo’s Fire in churches around Northeast Ohio, I had a bit of cognitive dissonance being in a real concert hall with relatively drier acoustics and seats rather than pews. Apollo’s Fire certainly performs in concert halls elsewhere in the United States and internationally, but it seemed on Friday that the group had not yet fully settled into the ambience of Gartner Auditorium. [Read more…]

CD Review—
Line Drawings, Chamber Music of John Liberatore • Albany Records

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by Nicholas Stevens

Line Drawings, the title of composer John Liberatore’s new album from Albany Records, refers to the eponymous piano suite that opens the recording. However, the title has a deeper significance. To hear the music on this disc — all “composed in the same way, and in close proximity,” according to Liberatore’s notes — is to feel pulled along at varying speeds in multiple directions, but always forward. The word compelling fails to capture the way this music ventures forth and draws the listener with it. Inviting works better, in every sense of that word. [Read more…]

CD Review: Veil,
Chamber Music of Greg D’Alessio
Ars Futura • Navona Records

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by Hannah Schoepe

To be “veiled” suggests a loss of orientation, dimmed sight, and a shadowy sense of mystery — ideas that are captured in Cleveland-based Ars Futura Ensemble’s newest album, Veil. Released by Navona Records on September 14, the playlist consists of five multifaceted, many-hued works by Cleveland State University faculty member Greg D’Alessio. [Read more…]

An Electrifying Bernstein Tribute from the Canton Symphony (Oct. 6)

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by Tom Wachunas

I was all of ten years old when I read Leonard Bernstein’s The Joy of Music for the first time. It was a cathartic experience, igniting in me a profoundly passionate appreciation of classical music. That inspiring book also fueled my regular viewing of Bernstein’s beloved Young People’s Concerts on television for the next several years. A particularly memorable highlight in one of those concerts was watching the composer conduct excerpts from his own Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. I was bitten by the Bernstein bug, benevolently infected by all those mad rhythms coming at me like so many punches amid a torrent of luscious orchestral colors. Now, more than 50 years later, that watershed moment of musical enthrallment returned a hundredfold on October 6 during the Canton Symphony Orchestra’s electrifying observance of the centenary of Leonard Bernstein. [Read more…]

Les Délices: “Mozart in Paris–Part 2” with fortepianist Sylvia Berry (Oct. 7)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Mozart’s second sojourn in Paris in the spring of 1778 left the 22-year-old composer in a funk. A child prodigy no longer, he was ignored and double-crossed by Parisian presenters and composers, ran out of funds without the promise of earning more income, and to top it off, his mother fell ill and died. Les Délices, who devoted a program last season to Mozart’s earlier and happier visit in 1763-1764, updated his Parisian saga last weekend in four concerts featuring fortepianist Sylvia Berry. The performances launched the tenth season of one of Northeast Ohio’s most distinguished ensembles. [Read more…]

Youngstown Symphony: all-Mozart opener (Sept. 29)

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by Robert Rollin

On Saturday, September 29, the Youngstown Symphony opened its 2018-19 season with an all-Mozart concert mixing theatrical, operatic, and symphonic elements. The majority of the evening juxtaposed operatic arias with excerpts from Mozart’s letters, read from stage left by actor James McClellan — costumed as the composer himself. [Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Music Society: Jerusalem Quartet at Plymouth (Oct. 2)

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by David Kulma

The splendid Jerusalem Quartet’s return to the Cleveland Chamber Music Society on Tuesday, October 2 at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights brought welcome respite in a week full of rancor and bitterness. But the powerful Shostakovich quartet that ended the evening brought the inescapable world back into view, both for the weary and the wary. [Read more…]

CIM Orchestra with guest conductor Thomas Wilkins & cellist Daniel Kaler (Sep. 26)

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by Nicholas Stevens

What can a concertgoer expect from a student orchestra? At most conservatories, ensemble membership varies from month to month, and a single concert can involve multiple personnel swaps. The young players face impossible schedules, limiting their time to prepare. Given all these constraints, the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, playing under guest conductor Thomas Wilkins, set an astonishingly high bar in an ambitious program on Wednesday, September 26. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: Prokofiev & Bartók with Yefim Bronfman (Sept. 27)

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by Daniel Hathaway

It’s difficult to explain why there were so many empty seats in Severance Hall for The Cleveland Orchestra’s third subscription concert of the season on Thursday, September 27. Did Prokofiev + Bartók + Prokofiev scare people away? Had binge-watching the Kavanaugh hearings all day sent folks into a decline? Were subscribers opting for the Orchestra’s big benefit on Saturday instead? Those who passed up hearing the performance — for whatever reason — missed out on one of the most remarkable evenings in recent memory. [Read more…]

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