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…]
by Robert Rollin
The audience in the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall witnessed a beautiful solo classical guitar recital on Sunday afternoon, June 4 by renowned Spanish virtuoso Ricardo Gallén, as part of the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival. Gallén’s audience, an appreciative mix of professional guitarists, students, and the public, heard a program of Classical works played on a small-but-penetrating Bernhard Kresse copy of a Johann Georg Stauffer romantic guitar, and music by living composers played on a larger modern guitar by Paco Santiago Marin of Spain. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Akron Baroque marked its tenth anniversary as an ensemble with a festive performance of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks and the premiere of founder Amy Barlowe’s expressive Magnificat at Fairlawn’s Faith Lutheran Church on Sunday, June 5, led by guest conductor Marie Bucoy-Calavan. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Susan Graham’s splendidly communicative recital program on the Baldwin Wallace Art Song Festival on Thursday evening, May 26 in Gamble Auditorium, involved slipping twenty extra songs in between the original eight of Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -leben. That resulted in a rich, nuanced commentary on the composer’s chronicle of a woman’s life cycle from the first glimpse of her beloved all the way through marriage, pregnancy, and childbirth, ending with his demise. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
On Tuesday, May 24, French baritone Edwin Crossley-Mercer and pianist Jason Paul Peterson opened the 2016 edition of the Baldwin Wallace Art Song Festival with a recital in Gamble Auditorium. Now in its 30th year, the week-long festival, which focuses on the combination of solo singer and piano, is the brainchild of retired Cleveland Institute of Music voice professor George Vassos. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
On Sunday evening, May 22, Choral Arts Cleveland presented its third and final concert of the season at Christ Episcopal Church in Shaker Heights. The program, titled “Chiaroscuro, Light and Shadow, Bodies in Motion,” included an interesting variety of styles and performance forces, including solo songs; a capella choruses; choruses accompanied by piano, organ, and additional instruments; and dancers from Verb Ballets. In the waning golden evening light, the sanctuary sparkled with atmosphere. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Hearing a concert featuring six premieres is not unusual. However, when those new works are all written by high-school age composers, that is a reason to take note. On Sunday afternoon, May 15, a capacity crowd gathered at the Bop Stop to hear an impressive concert that featured works by students in the Northern Ohio Youth Orchestra Young Composers Program. The concert also included performances by ensembles from NOYO’s Chamber Music Extension. [Read more…]