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Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra wraps up season with emotional performances (May 4)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Spring is always the season of farewells for the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (COYO). Twenty-nine of the middle- and high school musicians who performed in Mandel Concert Hall on Sunday pinned a white flower to their black attire — signifying that as graduating seniors, their time with the group would shortly come to a bittersweet end.

The May 4 concert at Severance Music Center also bid farewell to COYO’s music director Daniel Reith, who has led the ensemble since the fall of 2022. Sunday’s event left both students and conductor with plenty to be proud of.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Duo Chinoiserie (Apr. 26)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Sometimes a concert surprises and disorients its audience so completely that you have to be reminded of what you signed up to hear. Duo Chinoiserie, pairing guitarist Bin Hu and guzheng virtuoso Jing Xia, had that effect on Saturday evening, April 26, at the Maltz Performing Arts Center.

Presented by Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, the duo’s program of works — some written and others arranged for them — traced an imaginative arc across centuries, continents, and traditions, in a marvelous comingling of sonic possibilities.

[Read more…]

CIM Opera Theater: Don Giovanni (Apr. 23)

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by Peter Feher

It’s hard not to be enamored with Don Giovanni, Mozart’s supreme realization of passion, danger, and desire in music. And CIM Opera Theater made falling in love with this 1787 masterpiece the most natural thing thanks to a splendid production at Playhouse Square last week.

Taking the stage of the Mimi Ohio Theatre on Wednesday, April 23, for the first of two performances, the largely student cast seemed to be discovering the drama afresh. The story of the cad and lecher Don Juan has been told countless times, but the Italianate version that Mozart crafted with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte remains the most viscerally immediate, even centuries later.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra brass and percussion celebrate Akron’s 200th in ambitious Tuesday Musical program (Apr. 22)

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by Stephanie Manning

There are very few American cities who can count themselves as having an official fanfare. But now, Akron is one of them.

To celebrate the city’s 200th anniversary, Tuesday Musical commissioned composer Peter Boyer to write Festive Fanfare (For Akron’s Bicentennial). More than a concert piece, a recording of the four-minute fanfare will soon be made available for open-access use at Akron civic events. On April 22, a packed house heard it live for the first time as part of a wide-ranging program by the brass and percussion players of The Cleveland Orchestra.

“Kid — candy store,” Boyer said from the stage at E.J. Thomas Hall, gesturing to himself and then the musicians to describe his excitement. [Read more…]

Conductor Kazuki Yamada’s stylish Cleveland Orchestra debut features Elgar, Mozart, and pianist Francesco Piemontesi (Apr. 24)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Edward Elgar’s first symphony was a long time coming. But once the British composer finally put pen to paper at age 51, audiences at the time simply couldn’t get enough. But tastes change, and that rapturous response in 1908 couldn’t guarantee eternal success. The piece has now settled into relative obscurity for many American orchestras.

Today, Britain is still the most likely place to hear Elgar’s Symphony No. 1 — so it made sense that The Cleveland Orchestra’s performance on April 24 should be led by the conductor of a British ensemble. City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra music director Kazuki Yamada ascended the Severance Music Center podium, making his assured and elegant Cleveland Orchestra debut.

Elgar’s symphony is unconcerned with quaint, pastoral English scenes — instead, it’s often stormy, celebratory, and in-your-face, sometimes all at once. On Thursday, Yamada confirmed his reputation for passion and expressivity as a conductor in his interpretation of the symphony.

[Read more…]

Oberlin Chamber Orchestra thrills at Finney Chapel (Apr. 3)

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by Max Newman

The Oberlin Chamber Orchestra, a flagship ensemble of the Oberlin Conservatory, delivered a sterling performance at Finney Chapel on the evening of April 3. Under the direction of Raphael Jiménez, the performance featured three pieces of varying styles and moods, all played with aplomb.

The technical ability on display was brilliant. One of the more impressive aspects of the performance was the ability of the players to maintain an unerring control of dynamics. [Read more…]

Chinese Musicians Association of North America inspire at CMA (Apr. 11)

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by Peter Feher

The Chinese Musicians Association of North America (CMA-NA) may be less than a year old, but some of the group’s repertoire — and many of these performers’ instruments — date back centuries.

This history was on dazzling display in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on Friday, April 11. The evening covered thousands of years of culture, from ancient plucked melodies that might have been heard in the third, fourth, or fifth centuries BCE, to a world-premiere chamber work that imaginatively bridged Eastern and Western classical traditions.

Photos of sculptures and paintings from the Museum’s Chinese art collection, similarly extensive in scope, were projected above the stage.

[Read more…]

Soloists shine in Cleveland Orchestra’s Bach Easter Oratorio, Magnificat and more (Apr. 17)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — On Thursday, April 17, at Severance Music Center, Canadian guest conductor Bernard Labadie led The Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and four splendid soloists in two of J.S. Bach’s most exultant sacred works — the dramatic Easter Oratorio, and his Magnificat. Bach’s festive Sinfonia from his Cantata 29 completed the program.

Reworked from a secular cantata for a patron’s birthday, Bach’s Easter Oratorio is a less overtly theatrical work than the composer’s Passions. Its uncomplicated story describes the moment that Mary Magdalene (mezzo-soprano Adèle Charvet), Mary of Cleophas (soprano Joélle Harvey) and the apostles Peter (tenor Andrew Haji) and John (bass-baritone Gordon Bintner) come to the tomb of Jesus and find it empty.

[Read more…]

BW Bach Fest celebrates their namesake composer with “Suites and Motets” combination (Apr. 11)

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by Stephanie Manning

It’s early days, but the 2025 music festival season is starting to kick into gear. A harbinger of that trend here in Northeast Ohio is the Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival, which just celebrated its 94th year.

The second and final day of the event swapped J.S. Bach for George Frideric Handel, presenting the composer’s Messiah for the first time in festival history. But the previous evening’s presentation tread more familiar ground. On April 11, Dirk Garner led BWV: Cleveland’s Bach Choir in a spirited concert of Bach suites and motets. [Read more…]

Martha Redbone Roots Project: community and storytelling in Oberlin (Apr. 6)

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by Stephanie Manning

Martha Redbone knows how to tell a good story. So you’d better listen up, and get ready to sing along.

“This really will be a church tonight,” the singer promised Oberlin’s Finney Chapel and its assembled audience on April 6. The mood was indeed congregational — sometimes religious, but always communal. Redbone, pianist Aaron Whitby, violinist Charlie Burnham, and bassist Fred Cash, Jr. fostered an intimate evening of American Roots music with their performance as The Martha Redbone Roots Project. [Read more…]

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