by Samantha Spaccasi
What could be better than an evening of sitting on the lawn of Blossom Music Center — summer home of The Cleveland Orchestra, wine in hand, enjoying a picnic dinner while waiting to hear the ensemble play with pianist Aaron Diehl? Not much. On July 2, Diehl and the Orchestra, conducted by Jahja Ling, performed an array of favorites. [Read more…]
by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com
It’s common for productions of lyric theatre works to be placed in countries other than their original setting. But The Music Man is so American it’s hard to envision it taking place anywhere other than River City, Iowa. From the first whistle of the unseen drum major leading the ‘band’ during the overture, feet began to tap on the Freedlander Theatre floor — mine included. (Once a band member, always a band member.) [Read more…]
by Samantha Spaccasi
Dunham Tavern Museum is a perfect venue for an afternoon of chamber music. On Sunday afternoon, June 25, the seventh installment of this year’s ChamberFest explored the theme of “Youth” and featured early works by Beethoven and Bartók. The concert began with Wilhelm Popp’s Rigoletto Variations, performed by flutist Demarre McGill and pianist Zoltán Fejérvári. McGill gave a nuanced performance of this flashy piece, bringing it to light with impeccable phrasing. [Read more…]
by Samantha Spaccasi
“The Cavani Quartet is the heart and soul of ENCORE Chamber Music,” festival director Jinjoo Cho said before the group’s performance Friday night at the Gilmour Academy’s Tudor House. The Quartet proved why they are beloved during enjoyable performances of Shostakovich, Joaquín Turina, and Schubert. [Read more…]
by Joshua Rosner
On June 23, as beautiful light poured through Mixon Hall’s many windows, ChamberFest Cleveland presented “Hommage,” a program showcasing composers paying tribute to J.S. Bach. The concert began with the final two movements of Bach’s Suite No. 2 in b, replacing the originally programmed Cantata BWV 209 due to the withdrawal of mezzo-soprano Lauren Eberwein. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
On Sunday afternoon, June 18, Encore Chamber Music presented “Summer Tango,” an outstanding collaborative concert including the Jupiter and Cavani String Quartets and violinist Jinjoo Cho. The enthusiastic audience filled the small but opulent, wood-paneled room at Gilmour Academy’s Tudor House. [Read more…]
by Joshua Rosner
The audience at Mixon Hall was abuzz with anticipation Thursday night, June 22 for the fifth installment of the sixth season of ChamberFest Cleveland. “Fin de Siècle” (end of century) was a tapestry of compositions with roots in Austria from before and after the First World War. The evening consisted of works by Brahms, Ravel, and Korngold and was designed to showcase pianist Orion Weiss, a Lyndhurst native. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
György Kurtág, unlike his friend and fellow Hungarian György Ligeti, never softened his composing style. While his early works were more or less tonal, Ligeti’s style turned to modernism in the 1960s before evolving to become considerably more approachable by casual listeners. Kurtág’s severely modernist music is austerely beautiful and darkly dramatic, perhaps more to be admired than loved. [Read more…]
by Samantha Spaccasi
A hot and humid Friday night did not stop the Jupiter Quartet from putting on a stellar performance at the Gilmour Academy’s Tudor House. The group performed a “Beethoven sandwich” — two pieces by Beethoven with a delicious Ligeti work in the middle — for a fantastic opening to ENCORE Chamber Music’s second season.
The intimate setting was perfect for an evening of chamber music. Gathered in a richly decorated, wood-paneled room complete with grand portraits, the audience was transported back in time, as if we were aristocrats in a Parisian salon in the mid-1800s. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
With the theme of Cycles: Phases, the sixth ChamberFest Cleveland opened Thursday evening, June 15, in Mixon Hall, at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The theme reflects on “the complexity of the human experience at each stage of life, and ultimately circles around all types of musical, political and emotional phases.”
The concert showed off the qualities we have come to expect from ChamberFest: brilliantly imaginative programming, with a mix of old, new, familiar, and unfamiliar works, in superior performances by (mostly young) musicians hand-picked by festival directors Franklin and Diana Cohen. [Read more…]