by Nicholas Stevens
Of the many quotable lines issued by filmmaker and musician Jim Jarmusch at the Cleveland Museum of Art last week, two stood out: “I’m a self-proclaimed dilettante, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” and later, “The most beautiful thing humans do — have done — is music.” Both comments, given during a post-concert interview in the Museum’s Gartner Auditorium, shed light on the performance that Jarmusch and his bandmate Carter Logan had just staged.
by Nicholas Stevens
Kyoungtack Hong’s painting Library-Mt. Everest (2014) depicts exactly what its title suggests: a few bookshelf cubes and decorative objects cluster around the edge of the canvas, with a photorealistic image of Mount Everest in sunlit glory at the center. The work plays with the conventions of Korean chaekgeori, a kind of 19th-century painted screen on which artists depicted the contents of a scholar’s study. The musical experiences offered by Ji Aeri, a virtuoso of the gayageum — a zither-like instrument — and percussionist Kim Woongsik at a recent concert involved a process not unlike that of taking in Hong’s painting: as one moves from the outer portions of a work toward its heart, simplicity yields to sublimity.
by Jarrett Hoffman
Eight core musicians from three continents gather around the music of Billy Drewes in the latest release on the Oberlin Music label, Under One Sun. The album’s wide array of instruments, moods, and vocal styles makes for a fun and exploratory 70 minutes of jazz.
by Daniel Hathaway
Although Argentine pianist Martha Argerich has never before played here, her reputation guaranteed a full house of ardent fans when she joined Cleveland’s own Sergei Babayan in a duo piano recital on Monday evening at Severance Hall sponsored by the Cleveland International Piano Competition. Their virtuosic playing in music by Mozart and Prokofiev was simply phenomenal, leading the cheering audience to demand two encores at the end — after multiple bouquets of flowers had made their way to the stage. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Cleveland Opera Theater got top billing, but students from the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory covered most of the singing and acting duties in Brecht & Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, which received its second and final performance at the Maltz Performing Arts Center in University Circle on Sunday afternoon, October 29. Directed by Scott Skiba, the joint production was supported by a seven-piece instrumental ensemble conducted by Domenico Boyagian. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
French organist Michel Bouvard visited Trinity Cathedral on Tuesday, October 24 to play a wide-ranging recital in celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the cathedral’s Flentrop organ. With the assistance of two registrants who drew and retired stops — the organ was built in 1750s Dutch style, all-mechanical and with no gadgets for pre-setting combinations — Bouvard masterfully put the 1977 instrument through its paces in stylish performances of music ranging from Renaissance dances to transcriptions of works by Vivaldi and Mendelssohn. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Two days after welcoming CityMusic Cleveland and John Corigliano for a concert in its nave, the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus inaugurated its recently-restored William Schuelke Organ with a concert by organist Nicole Keller, assisted by two of her Baldwin Wallace Conservatory colleagues — flutist Sean Gabriel and violinist Julian Ross. Keller’s well-planned, beautifully executed program put the 1910 organ through an engaging shakedown cruise that showed its basic character and its range of capabilities. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Try as he did, even Louis XIV’s edicts on style and taste could not suppress the cross-pollination of the “refined” music of late-17th and early-18th century French musicians with that of the more “flashy” Italians. This past weekend, Les Délices, the always-creative and musically polished French Baroque ensemble, opened their season with two performances of a program titled “Inspired by Italy.” I heard Sunday afternoon’s concert in the Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
In an unusual example of regifting, Avner Dorman and CityMusic Cleveland bestowed an early 80th-birthday present on John Corigliano on Friday evening, October 20 at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus: a performance of his own ‘Red Violin’ Concerto, the solo part commandingly played by Tessa Lark. The composer flew in from New York for the occasion and gave some introductory notes from the church’s ornate pulpit. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
American composer Lou Harrison (1917-2003) studied with Arnold Schoenberg and Henry Cowell, but followed his own creative path, strongly influenced by Asian music, especially the gamelan music of Java (now a part of Indonesia). In celebration of Harrison’s 100th anniversary, the Cleveland Museum of Art presented a concert of his music on Friday, October 20 in Gartner Auditorium. The evening featured radiant performances by the MIT-based Gamelan Galak Tika, founded and directed by composer Evan Ziporyn. [Read more…]