by Timothy Robson
Poor Victor Herbert, the Irish-born, German-trained cellist, conductor, and composer, has gotten the short end of the music history stick. In the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century he was one of the most acclaimed American musical figures, both as a performer and as a composer of concert works — as well as a successful grand opera (Natoma, 1911) which starred soprano Mary Garden and a young Irish tenor making his operatic debut, John McCormick. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
A large audience gathered in Warner Concert Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music on Wednesday evening, July 20, to hear sixty busy fingers — attached to six talented young musicians — play half-hour recitals. Wednesday’s round would determine which three contestants in the Thomas & Evon Cooper International Piano Competition would advance to the stage of Severance Hall to play full concertos with Jahja Ling and The Cleveland Orchestra on Friday, July 22. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway & Neil McCalmont
Ten young pianists, ages 13-17, advanced to the Concerto Round of the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Piano Competition at Oberlin’s Warner Concert Hall on Tuesday, July 19. In afternoon and evening sessions, the jury and audience heard performances of concertos by Sergei Prokofiev (No. 3, three times), Edvard Grieg (twice), Sergei Rachmaninoff (No. 2, twice), Ludwig van Beethoven (Nos. 1 and 4) and Frédéric Chopin (No. 1). [Read more…]
by Neil McCalmont
On Sunday evening, July 17, The Cleveland Orchestra celebrated the centenary of the National Parks Service with an Americana-themed concert titled “An American in Paris” at Blossom Music Center — their own venue located in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The night’s program consisted of works by Ravel, Copland, and Gershwin conducted by Bramwell Tovey, with guest pianist Javier Perianes.
by Daniel Hathaway
English music doesn’t appear very often on American symphony orchestra programs — except when English conductors make guest appearances. Michael Francis brought along Edward Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s A London Symphony for his Blossom Music Festival visit. On Saturday evening, July 16, he paired engaging Britannic music both urban and bucolic with Mozart’s 21st concerto featuring Australian pianist David Fung. [Read more…]
by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com
Screwball comedies of the mid-20th Century may well have been inspired by the zany 1866 operetta La Vie Parisienne, which ran for 136 performances. Judging from Ohio Light Opera’s wildly entertaining production (I saw the show on Saturday, July 16), composer Jacques Offenbach surely knew what he was doing. If you want to laugh a lot and have your mood lifted by fast-paced dancing and singing, this show is for you. [Read more…]
by Neil McCalmont
On the evening of Saturday, July 16 at Gilmour Academy, the “Sonata Duo” portion of ENCORE Chamber Music’s inaugural season opened with a titanic concert by Brazilian pianist Arnaldo Cohen, consisting of works by Bach, Brahms, and Chopin. Lauded by one critic as “the greatest pianist you’ve never heard of,” Cohen has led a successful international career, but has yet to become a household name in the States. Given the night’s thrilling performance, this should soon change. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
When it comes to groups whose music combines a myriad of musical styles ranging from classical to pop, jazz to bluegrass, and everything in between, there’s Time for Three, and there’s everybody else. On Wednesday, July 13 Tf3 returned to Northeast Ohio for a concert at Cartwright Hall on the campus of Kent State University, violinists Nikki Chooi and Nicholas (Nick) Kendall and bassist Ranaan Meyer once again proving that nobody does it better than they do. [Read more…]
by J. D. Goddard
On Sunday, July 3, I attended the second of two pre-Fourth of July concerts at Blossom, performed by the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Johannes Debus. The open air pavilion was a picture perfect setting and the weather was ideal.
The evening opened with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, inspired by Tales of the Arabian Nights. The composer called it “A kaleidoscope of fairy-tale images,” [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
On Wednesday evening, July 12, Youngstown’s St. John’s Episcopal Church, in cooperation with Pennsylvania’s Newcastle Eintracht Männerchor and WYSU-FM, played host to an unusual and outstanding event. Elias David Moncado, a fifteen-year-old violinist from Germany, was the headliner. Moncado’s mother, Mooi Jieu, played the lion’s share of the piano parts, and her husband Bernard, a conductor and chorus master, also played piano and provided commentary. [Read more…]