ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad
Ad

Re•Views

Tri-C Jazz Fest: Friday evening, June 29

by

by Alice Koeninger

Friday night of the Tri-C Jazz Fest was a whirl of music, from the outdoor stage on a street lined with food trucks, to the steady stream of shows in the Playhouse Square theaters. Bands such as Organ Ism, Acid Cats, and Uptown Buddha filled the blocked-off streets with their neo-soul, funk, jazz, and hip-hop hybrids. Tents were selling Cleveland-themed clothes, jewelry, and household items, plus some more unique products like wine slushies or bags made from recycled jeans. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: Fifty Million Frenchmen

by

by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

If you blink during the momentary lights-out between the end of the overture and the curtain going up, you might think you’ve somehow been transported to Paris in 1929. Time-travel, perhaps? Ohio Light Opera’s production of Fifty Million Frenchmen in Freedlander Theater at the College of Wooster is very realistic, to be sure, and totally enjoyable, but then, what’s not to like in a Cole Porter creation?  His insouciant music and beguiling lyrics can support just about any plot imaginable. But this one, by Herbert Fields, is downright perfect. [Read more…]

ENCORE: “Nasty Women” at Mixon Hall (June 29)

by

by David Kulma

ENCORE Chamber Music continued its third season on Friday, June 29 in CIM’s Mixon Hall with an enjoyable concert celebrating “music written and inspired by fiery female artists” and entitled “Nasty Women.” This reference is to Donald Trump’s ad hominem attack on Hillary Clinton during the third presidential debate, which many liberal women immediately adopted as a badge of honor. [Read more…]

Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute: faculty perform Couperin & Charpentier (June 30)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

Even with a Baroque organ case looming over its stage, the utilitarian design of Oberlin’s Warner Concert Hall has nothing in common with the overwrought exuberance of the Palace of Versailles. But if you closed your eyes last Friday evening, June 30, and let your ears take over, the faculty of the Baroque Performance Institute — plus some advanced students and choral scholars — successfully transported you back three centuries to the court of Louis XIV (aka the Sun King) in extended works by François Couperin and Marc-Antoine Charpentier. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Behind Bars” at Reinberger (June 29)

by

by Timothy Robson

In the penultimate concert of their 2018 season, ChamberFest Cleveland offered the program “Behind Bars” on Friday, June 29 in Reinberger Chamber Music Hall at Severance Hall. The title was a reference to twentieth-century composer, organist and teacher Olivier Messiaen, who was being held in a German POW camp in 1940 when he composed his Quartet for the End of Time. That work received a searingly intense performance on the second half of the program, rendering the music that preceded it almost trivial by comparison. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland Concert 6: “Forging New Paths” at Mixon (June 23)

by

by Nicholas Stevens

“Forging New Paths,” the title of ChamberFest Cleveland’s sixth concert this season, refers to a time when critics feared that classical music was dying. In an article titled “New Paths,” Robert Schumann predicted that his young colleague Brahms would become German art music’s savior. The unstated premise was that it needed one. [Read more…]

ENCORE delights with Mozart & Tchaikovsky (June 17)

by

by Delaney Meyers

ENCORE Chamber Music festival continued on Sunday, June 17 at Gilmour Academy’s Tudor House with Mozart’s String Quintet No. 3 in C and Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence. Festival director and violinist Jinjoo Cho and faculty artists violist Eric Wong and cellist Si-Yan Darren Li were joined by guest violist Mathieu Herzog, as well as two ENCORE Festival student artists, violinist Aaron Chan and cellist Tate Zawadiuk. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Opera: Moniuszko’s Straszny dwór at the Ohio Theater (June 16)

by

by David Kulma

A rare operatic treat graced the Ohio Theatre at Playhouse Square on Saturday, June 16: a single performance of Stanisław Moniuszko’s 19th-century, Polish-language gem Straszny dwór. Designed to celebrate the centenary of Polish independence, this traditionally-staged production with Cleveland Ballet added up to an uneven evening. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: Babes in Arms (June 21)

by

by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

If you enjoy music from the Great American Songbook or the Golden Age of Broadway, then you’re already familiar with a good number of songs from Richard Rodgers’ and Lorenz Hart’s Babes in Arms. After opening on April 14, 1937 and running for 289 performances, the musical never again appeared on Broadway, quite possibly because of the show’s politically incorrect views and language. [Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us