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Soloists shine in Cleveland Orchestra’s Bach Easter Oratorio, Magnificat and more (Apr. 17)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — On Thursday, April 17, at Severance Music Center, Canadian guest conductor Bernard Labadie led The Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and four splendid soloists in two of J.S. Bach’s most exultant sacred works — the dramatic Easter Oratorio, and his Magnificat. Bach’s festive Sinfonia from his Cantata 29 completed the program.

Reworked from a secular cantata for a patron’s birthday, Bach’s Easter Oratorio is a less overtly theatrical work than the composer’s Passions. Its uncomplicated story describes the moment that Mary Magdalene (mezzo-soprano Adèle Charvet), Mary of Cleophas (soprano Joélle Harvey) and the apostles Peter (tenor Andrew Haji) and John (bass-baritone Gordon Bintner) come to the tomb of Jesus and find it empty.

[Read more…]

BW Bach Festival celebrates their namesake composer with “Suites and Motets” combination (Apr. 11)

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by Stephanie Manning

It’s early days, but the 2025 music festival season is starting to kick into gear. A harbinger of that trend here in Northeast Ohio is the Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival, which just celebrated its 94th year.

The second and final day of the event swapped J.S. Bach for George Frideric Handel, presenting the composer’s Messiah for the first time in festival history. But the previous evening’s presentation tread more familiar ground. On April 11, Dirk Garner led BWV: Cleveland’s Bach Choir in a spirited concert of Bach suites and motets. [Read more…]

Martha Redbone Roots Project: community and storytelling in Oberlin (Apr. 6)

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by Stephanie Manning

Martha Redbone knows how to tell a good story. So you’d better listen up, and get ready to sing along.

“This really will be a church tonight,” the singer promised Oberlin’s Finney Chapel and its assembled audience on April 6. The mood was indeed congregational — sometimes religious, but always communal. Redbone, pianist Aaron Whitby, violinist Charlie Burnham, and bassist Fred Cash, Jr. fostered an intimate evening of American Roots music with their performance as The Martha Redbone Roots Project. [Read more…]

Rocky River Chamber Music Society: North Coast Winds (Apr. 7)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

According to Ben Chen’s program notes for the North Coast Winds concert on April 7 at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, the jazz age, which began in the 1920s,  coincided with the emergence of the woodwind quintet as a standard chamber ensemble. This made an appealing premise for the ensemble’s programming. But if jazz as a musical style and aesthetic was hard to detect that evening, it mattered little.

What did matter was the quality of the music performed and the playing of the ensemble, which was refined and persuasive. [Read more…]

Itzhak Perlman’s celebratory visit turns Severance Music Center into a ‘Fiddler’s House’ (Apr. 8)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — There’s a Yiddish saying that goes, “In the fiddler’s house, everyone dances.” Admittedly, in Severance Music Center on Tuesday night, April 8, it took some coaxing before a small but joyful group of people stood up, joined hands, and began snaking through the aisles.

Getting the audience on their feet is a trademark of Itzhak Perlman’s touring program “In the Fiddler’s House,” a celebration of traditional Jewish klezmer music. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire gives a sublime performance of Bach’s Mass in b minor (Apr. 5)

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by Peter Feher

The 2024–2025 season for Apollo’s Fire may be coming to a close, but the group’s performances of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor will continue to resound throughout Northeast Ohio. Just like those listeners who are forever returning to the work for comfort, cogitation, or a glimpse of transcendence, Cleveland’s Baroque orchestra isn’t finished with this all-embracing masterpiece.

On Saturday, April 5, at Trinity Cathedral, the consoling final notes of the “Dona nobis pacem” — Bach’s “vision of peace,” as AF artistic director Jeannette Sorrell has described it — seemed to linger in the stone vaulting long after the music had died away. The effect was a sublime example of the ensemble making the most of the space, the combined period-instrument forces of woodwinds, brass, strings, and organ supporting the uplifting message sung by the chorus.

[Read more…]

Akron Symphony sparkles in works by Mozart, Bologne, Montgomery, and Beethoven (Mar. 29)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

For his final appearance with the Akron Symphony on Saturday, March 29 at E.J. Thomas Hall, Amer Hasan went out in style. He was the agile and honey-toned soloist in the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, and for good measure, he occupied his soon-to-be vacant principal chair to play the works on the second half.

Employing the A-clarinet rather than basset horn — as the composer intended — Hasan chose deftness rather than force in the concerto. His frolicing up and down the instrument was enough to make any singer jealous. The Adagio was a serene balm of peace, and in the finale Hasan turned playful, goading the orchestra into sassy ripostes.

Christopher Wilkins and the orchestra were sensitive and generous collaborators throughout, underscoring and confirming the soloist’s interpretations like an ideal dance partner. Hasan offered up no extended cadenzas (Mozart wrote none) or encores for that matter, presumably saving his energy for the works on the second half.

[Read more…]

Oberlin Opera stages its second La finta giardiniera in a decade (Mar. 9)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The COVID pandemic has played with our concept of the passage of time so greatly that when Oberlin Opera announced it was staging Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s La finta giardiniera in March, many of us said to ourselves: Didn’t they just perform that piece recently?

No, it’s been ten years since Jonathan Field’s outsized rabbits lock-stepped across the Hall Auditorium stage, adding another layer of absurdity to an already harebrained plot.

The opera centers on the pretend garden-girl of the title, Violante. Having been stabbed and left for dead by her jealous lover, Count Belfiore, Violante is still in love with him and seeks him out. She and her servant Roberto take up fake identities (under the names Sandrina and Nardo, respectively) as gardeners at the estate of the Podestà (a type of mayor). A love heptagon ensues, involving those mentioned plus the Podestà’s housekeeper (Serpetta), niece (Arminda), and niece’s ex-lover (Don Ramiro). [Read more…]

Cleveland Women’s Orchestra celebrates 90 years at Severance (Mar. 30)

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by Stephanie Manning

Of the many orchestra performances held at Severance Music Center in a given year, only one of them features a musician roster made up entirely of women. This brief break from the status quo comes courtesy of the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra, which has been performing in the space now known as Mandel Concert Hall for 90 years.

Closing out the final weekend of Women’s History Month, the longest-running women’s orchestra in the country marked its 90th anniversary with its annual celebration concert. Music director Eric Benjamin led the program on March 30, which leaned traditional with plenty of orchestral standards.

The group’s strengths showed brightest in the peppy music that bookended the program. Shostakovich’s Festive Overture opened the concert on a strong note with even tempos, a healthy group sound, and satisfying bass drum hits. Benjamin’s conducting was attentive, but not micromanaging. [Read more…]

Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes champions Norwegian composers in Cleveland recital (Mar. 27)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Touring musicians have been making some difficult decisions about whether to proceed with their U.S. engagements lately, and Leif Ove Andsnes is no exception.

“It’s with mixed emotions that I arrived in the U.S. yesterday,” the Norwegian pianist wrote in a statement on his social media. “Music cannot solve global problems, but I hope my program can at least inspire some of the emotions we so badly need right now: compassion, empathy, generosity, understanding, and an appreciation of diversity.”

Forging ahead with his recital tour, Andsnes took the stage at Severance Music Center on Thursday, March 27 as part of The Cleveland Orchestra’s Recital Series. The pianist gracefully represented his home country with music by Edvard Grieg and Geirr Tveitt, along with Frédéric Chopin’s 24 Preludes.

[Read more…]

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