by Daniel Hathaway
Bosnian composer and accordionist Merima Kljuo gave the Cleveland premiere of her work The Sarajevo Haggadah: Music of the Book at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2015 in a version for accordion and piano. Last week she returned to Cleveland with her new, vibrant orchestration of the piece, which celebrates the miraculous journey of an elegant medieval Jewish prayer book from Spain to Bosnia. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
In a clever concert in the Recital Hall of the Cleveland Museum of Art on Sunday afternoon, March 18, nineteen members of Scott MacPherson’s Cleveland Chamber Choir pitted sixteen madrigals against each other as though they were competing basketball teams in the March Madness bracket, inviting the audience to vote by “applauseometer” on their favorites, and ultimately declaring a champion. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
In honor of the Baroque master’s 333rd birthday on the 21st of the month, Cleveland Orchestra principal cello Mark Kosower played an all-Bach recital on Sunday, March 18 on the Arts Renaissance Tremont Series at Pilgrim Congregational Church. It was a splendid and generous concert, musically, spiritually, and temporally — and at over two and a quarter hours, there were a lot of notes! [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
Active on the international piano scene for around a decade, Lise de la Salle continues to rise. In a recital for the Tri-C Classical Piano Series this week, she explored one of the fundamental elements of the human condition, often invoked yet seldom considered in depth: love. At the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on March 18, though de la Salle often explained to the audience the reasoning behind her programming choices, these commentaries proved less powerful than the combination of her musical and gestural sensibilities. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
Let’s clarify this right away: Paul Galbraith, the Scottish guitarist, plays a custom-built, 8-stringed instrument that sets him apart in the classical guitar world. Called the “Brahms guitar” after the first piece Galbraith transcribed for it — that composer’s Variations on an Original Theme for piano — it allows the player to tackle a wide range of transcribed repertoire thanks to its two extra strings: a bass A, and a high A. He plays the instrument upright, cello-style, its end pin inserted into a resonating box. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
This past Friday evening, the Parish Hall at Ohio City’s Historic St. John’s Episcopal Church buzzed with egalitarian noise brimming with vigorous life during the three-set free-improvisation concert presented by the Syndicate for the New Arts and New Ghosts. The first half hour was filled with the sweeping sounds of electronic musician Judy Jackson. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
A tone poem and a symphony by Antonín Dvořák framed Samuel Barber’s dauntingly virtuosic Cello Concerto at Severance Hall on Thursday evening, March 15, when Alan Gilbert and Alisa Weilerstein returned for guest appearances with The Cleveland Orchestra. Weilerstein’s performance of the rarely-heard concerto was as breathtaking for its virtuosity as her encore of a Bach sarabande was for its simple poignancy. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
Last Friday evening, March 9, Opera Western Reserve joined The Warren Philharmonic for an outstanding performance of George & Ira Gershwin’s iconic Porgy and Bess at Stambaugh Auditorium. Karen Clark Green and David Vosburgh, collaborating as stage directors, successfully propelled the action along. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Les Délices’ artistic director Debra Nagy quipped to the audience in Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church on Sunday, March 11, that the afternoon’s program could be nicknamed “Dido three ways.” Joined by the wonderful soprano Clara Rottsolk and the splendid Baroque harpist Maria Christina Cleary, Nagy and her ensemble explored the tragic story of Dido, Queen of Carthage, as chronicled in gripping performances of highly dramatic music by a trio of composers: Francesco Cavalli, Michel-Pignolet de Montéclair, and Henry Purcell. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Was it just a remarkable coincidence, or a pianistic hat trick? In the last three weekends, The Cleveland Orchestra has welcomed Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Yefim Bronfman, and Daniil Trifonov as soloists for its concerts in Severance Hall, joining guest conductors Matthias Pintscher, Nikolaj Znaider, and Michael Tilson Thomas in concertos by Ravel, Beethoven, and Prokofiev. That amounted to an undeclared midwinter festival of distinguished pianists and concertos.