by Neil McCalmont
On Friday, June 24 at CIM’s Mixon Hall, ChamberFest Cleveland put on a thrilling concert titled “Obsession,” exploring the more intimate side of several composers’ lives and oeuvres.
“Obsession” began with two of Richard Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, his only vocal composition for which he did not also write the words. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Creating a sonorous volume of sound you could hardly imagine without being there, more than 40 trombonists marked the end of the 2016 Cleveland Trombone Seminar with a massed performance of music by Wagner, Mozart, Mahler, and Richard Strauss on Sunday, June 19 in Drinko Hall at Cleveland State University. [Read more…]
by Neil McCalmont
The first-ever season of ENCORE Chamber Music began with an impassioned and learnèd concert by the Miró Quartet on Saturday evening, June 18 in the chapel of Gilmour Academy. ENCORE, founded by renowned violinist Jinjoo Cho, is a seven-week summer camp for elite young string players and pianists. Students hone their skills through coachings, masterclasses, and concerts by seasoned professionals. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
On Saturday evening, June 18 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, Jewish patriarchs, matriarchs, and rabbis held works by Haydn, Kljuco, Britten, and Golijov in their embrace for a ChamberFest Cleveland concert titled “Isaac’s Dreams.” No matter how closely the pieces adhered to the theme, the performances were uniformly superb. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
ChamberFest Cleveland’s concerts organize chamber works under imaginative themes. On Friday evening, June 17 in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance, the connective tissue that linked works by Bridge, Dvořák, Kurtág, Beethoven, and Brahms in a concert titled “To My Distant Beloved” was the idea of separation anxiety. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
On Thursday evening, June 16 at Baroque Music Barn in Hunting Valley, Apollo’s Fire’s Countryside Concerts presented a new show, “My Island Home: Songs and Stories of Newfoundland,” created by Meredith Hall and Sylvain Bergeron in cooperation with Montréal’s Ensemble La Nef.
by Neil McCalmont
The fifth season of ChamberFest Cleveland — titled “Tales and Legends” — has officially begun, and the world-class festival of chamber music is off to a thrilling start.
WCLV listeners and audience members in Ideastream’s Smith Studio were treated to “Nosh at Noon,” an unofficial inaugural concert on Wednesday, June 15. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
On Saturday, June 11, four years after Opera Circle Cleveland first took on Il trovatore at Bohemian National Hall, the company revisited the opera — one of Verdi’s most popular titles — at the Ohio Theatre in PlayHouse Square. A strong cast of singers and a fine professional orchestra led by Joel Smirnoff lifted the production well above some shortcomings of staging. [Read more…]
by Neil McCalmont
The Oberlin Trio has been making music to widespread acclaim since its founding in 1982 by violinist Stephen Clapp, cellist Andor Toth Jr., and pianist Joseph Schwartz. Since 2008, the tradition has been carried on by another three distinguished faculty members of the Oberlin Conservatory: violinist David Bowlin, cellist Amir Eldan, and pianist Haewon Song. All are renowned pedagogues who have performed and recorded prolifically throughout their respective careers. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Most classical guitar recitals are one-player-on-the-stage affairs, so SoloDuo’s excellent recital on the evening of Saturday, June 4 in Mixon Hall at CIM was a double-your-pleasure, double-your-fun occasion. Italian guitarists Matteo Mela and Lorenzo Micheli wowed and delighted a sold-out crowd with intelligent and probing performances of arrangements of music by Domenico Scarlatti, Vincenzo Bellini, J.S. Bach, Claude Debussy, and Astor Piazzolla. [Read more…]