by Jane Berkner
On Friday, March 11, when the Tuesday Musical Association brought the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields to E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron, it was wonderfully apparent why the group is one of the most well known and recorded orchestras in the world. Led by Director and violinist Joshua Bell, their well-planned program took the audience on a musical exploration of the landscape between the Classical and Romantic periods. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Jones
St. Patrick’s Day came early this year — at least for a couple of hours — as the Irish band Dervish returned to the Cleveland Museum of Art on March 11 with an energetic and delightful concert presenting traditional dance tunes — mainly reels and jigs — and traditional ballads in Gaelic and English. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
British director Peter Brook’s re-imagining of George Bizet’s ever-popular opera Carmen caused a stir when it debuted in New York in 1981. Pared down to 85 minutes in length and divested of choruses and much of its connective music, it rankled die-hard opera fans and critics. But as director Victoria Bussert and Baldwin Wallace Opera proved on opening night, Thursday, February 25, The Tragedy of Carmen can be a stunning piece of theater in its own right. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Beatrice and Benedict of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing might have been surprised enough to find themselves recast in Hector Berlioz’s operatic sequel, Béatrice et Bénédict. What would those two eventual lovers have thought about their translation to a 1960s American university during football season? Director David Bamberger’s updating of Berlioz’s 1862 work for the CIM Opera Theater on Wednesday, February 24 certainly brought a fresh perspective to an old story, even with a few cultural dissonances. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The names Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Johannes Brahms are ubiquitous on concert programs. But Marius Flothuis, Arthur Meulemans, Norman Sherman, Robert Marek, and Arthur Frackenpohl? Not so much. So it was refreshing to encounter a whole set of new compositional personalities on the concert by Factory Seconds Brass Trio on Sunday afternoon, February 21, part of the 33rd season of Music from the Western Reserve at Christ Church, Hudson. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
The 2015/2016 Chagrin Concert Series lists as its mission statement “bringing fine classical music concerts to the greater Chagrin Falls community.” Last Sunday afternoon’s trio recital fulfilled this goal and more. It brought to the table an entire concert of exceptionally deserving but rarely heard 20th-century works, presented with amazing flair and verve. [Read more…]
by Carlyn Kessler
On Sunday evening, February 28, the Cleveland Cello Society (CCS) welcomed audience members into Case Western Reserve University’s Harkness Chapel for the 18th iCellisti concert, an annual event organized by CCS and directed by cellist Ida Mercer. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
On the WOW! spectrum, the JACK Quartet’s concert on Wednesday, March 2 in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art was high on the rating scale. It was a program of new music, and although several of the works were arrangements of old or even very old music, they were given new garb for these performances. We were reminded that the distance between ancient and modern is often not far. The program featured two world premieres, both by the Turkish-born, New York-based composer and improviser Cenk Ergün. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Jones
Like all great drama, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Passions — his settings of the gospel accounts of Jesus’s crucifixion — present conflicting points of view. We see the Passion through so many characters in the story — the disciple Peter, who denies knowing Jesus; the conflicted Roman governor Pilate, who finds no guilt in Jesus and yet sends him to the cross; the angry crowd, which demands his crucifixion; and Jesus himself, suffering and yet transcending his suffering. At every point, Bach demands our involvement with the conflicting ways in which each of these actors interpret the crucial event of the Christian story. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
As Director of Music at King’s College, Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury presides over one of the best-known choirs in the world in the college’s famously reverberant medieval chapel, as well as over its massive organ (currently removed for a year to undergo restoration). He also maintains his own career as an international concert organist and conductor. [Read more…]