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CIM Orchestra: Steven Smith conducts music by Shulamit Ran (January 27)

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by Daniel Hathaway

RAN-ShulamitIn a post-intermission conversation with CIM composition professor Keith Fitch last Wednesday evening, January 27 in Kulas Hall, visiting composer Shulamit Ran showered praise on guest conductor Steven Smith and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra. They had just assumed the considerable challenges of performing her Legends and Violin Concerto, and she found that impressive. “I wouldn’t have thought I’d live to hear both of those pieces on the same program,” she said. [Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Lutenist Paul O’Dette at Plymouth Church (Jan. 30)

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by Christine Jay

O'DETTE-PaulA solo lute recital may be one of the most intimate concert experiences ever. Time seems suspended, and melody and harmony intermingle in sweet, soft pluckery. Producing such a sound-world takes skill, however, and Grammy Award-winning lutenist Paul O’Dette demonstrated his skill in spades during his January 30th recital in Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, presented by the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society. [Read more…]

Inspiring Mendelssohn, Transcendent Strauss from the Canton Symphony Orchestra (Jan. 23)

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by Tom Wachunas

EarthAmong the many combined ingredients that make the Canton Symphony Orchestra the excellent ensemble that it is, arguably none is more vital than the relationship between the conductor, Gerhardt Zimmermann, and his orchestra musicians. In the past, I have often regarded Zimmermann’s readings of a given work as impassioned embodiments of his uncanny ability to draw out a particularly radiant sonority from his players. Call it the pursuit of unified intent, a one-for-all and all-for-one process. [Read more…]

Peter Takács caps off “The Beethoven Experience” at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall (January 14)

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by Jarrett Hoffman

TAKACS-Peter1New York, January 14 — Pianist Peter Takács knows Beethoven like the palm of his hand, and I’m not saying whether that’s his own or Beethoven’s. Showcasing interpretations built over a lifetime studying that composer, the professor of piano at Oberlin Conservatory capped off “The Beethoven Experience” on January 14 at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. The series’ three concerts — starring Takács and chamber music friends — each examined one of the three periods of Beethoven’s works, concluding with Thursday evening’s look at the “late period.” [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Barbara Hannigan (Jan. 14)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Hannigan-FWMSome of the most arresting concert works don’t end with a bang, but a whisper. Both Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 4 dissipated into silence at Severance Hall on Thursday, January 14, as music director Franz Welser-Möst held off the eventual ovations for a long, thoughtful moment. There was a lot to reflect on in The Cleveland Orchestra’s playing of both an enthralling new work and a sprawling Soviet-era symphony. [Read more…]

Olivier Brault and the Akron Symphony: a dialogue of traditions (January 16)

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by Christine Jay

BRAULT-OlivierThankfully not all old traditions die hard. On January 16 in the University of Akron’s E. J. Thomas Hall, music director Christopher Wilkins, baroque violinist Olivier Brault, and the Akron Symphony presented a concert entitled “Vivaldi and Bach — The Great Inspiration.” An intermingling of historical and modern performance traditions ensued, with inspiring results. [Read more…]

Les Délices: Sponseller & Street in “The Imaginary Orchestra” (January 16)

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by Daniel Hathaway

2-HarpsichordsRecitals that feature duo-harpsichordists are rare enough treats, but the program of French baroque music that Michael Sponseller and Jacob Street played on Les Délices’ series at The Galleries at Cleveland State University on Saturday evening, January 16, was an extraordinary tasting menu of twenty opera-related delights. These ranged from the ancien cuisine music of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marin Marais to the nouvelle cuisine experiments of Armand-Louis Couperin, sandwiched around ten wonderfully varied main courses by Jean-Philippe Rameau and followed by a pair of postprandial confections supplied by Pancrace Royer. [Read more…]

CD Review:
Barbara Hannigan in Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you

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by Daniel Hathaway

let-me-tell-you-CDReleased on January 8, just a week before her U.S. premiere of the work with The Cleveland Orchestra, Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan’s recording of Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you with Andris Nelsons and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra should count as one of the most important new music CDs of 2016. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Yefim Bronfman:
Beethoven three ways (January 7)

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by Daniel Hathaway

TCO-FWM-Bronfman-0215Beethoven’s music comes in all flavors. On Thursday, January 7 at Severance Hall, Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra — back after a month’s worth of holiday music — delighted a capacity audience with the string orchestra version of one of the composer’s late quartets, the middle child of his five piano concertos, and an occasional piece specially composed to include all the performers involved in the composer’s marathon concert at the Theater-am-Wien on December 22 of 1808. The triptych of pieces, two of them featuring the commanding work of pianist Yefim Bronfman, added up to a thoroughly gratifying evening. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra & Cleveland Orchestra Chorus: Holiday Festival Concert at Severance Hall (Dec. 19)

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by Daniel Hathaway

TCO XmasThe eighth of ten concerts featuring The Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and Youth Chorus on Saturday evening, December 19 showed no apparent signs of holiday fatigue or repetitive music syndrome. To the obvious delight of a full house, Robert Porco led a wide variety of holiday selections in arrangements by such practiced hands as William Walton, Robert Shaw, Robert Russell Bennett, and John Rutter. The two-hour concert also featured original pieces by Eric Whitacre, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, George Frideric Handel, and Leroy Anderson — and a visit from the Man in the Red Suit. [Read more…]

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