by Daniel Hathaway
Continuing Cuyahoga Community College’s distinguished Classical Piano Series, Italian pianist Orazio Maione played an intriguing program of works by Sergei Prokofiev and Frédéric Chopin in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Sunday afternoon, November 22. This concert was sponsored by the Northern Ohio Italian American Foundation. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
On the eve of St. Cecilia’s Day — but obviously blessed in advance by the patron saint of music — the Cleveland Chamber Choir sang a splendid inaugural concert at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights. Under the direction of its founder, Scott MacPherson, the new ensemble’s performance on Saturday, November 21 set a very high standard for themselves as a professional choral ensemble, and MacPherson’s programming whetted the appetite for more imaginative concert menus to come. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
The plucky concert presenters at Arts Renaissance Tremont continued their excellent 25th Season on Sunday afternoon, November 22 at Pilgrim Church with a complete performance of Igor Stravinsky’s 1918 theater piece, L’Histoire du soldat, as well as the first performance of a new work by ART’s guest composer-in-residence, David Conte, who was present to conduct his own work. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Replicating in concert form the format he developed for his recent CD, Pictures, the 21-year-old piano phenomenon Conrad Tao walked his audience through two musical galleries on Wednesday evening, November 18. The second half of Tuesday Musical’s Margaret Baxtresser Annual Piano Concert had already been curated by Modest Mussorgsky, who used paintings by Victor Hartmann to inspire his popular suite Pictures at an Exhibition. [Read more…]
by J.D. Goddard
On Saturday, November 14, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra presented a program at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights that could be described as a showcase for some of Cleveland’s most talented musicians. Led by founder and conductor Carlton Woods, the ensemble performed three sublime and challenging works by Gabriel Fauré, Giuseppe Maria Cambini, and Francis Poulenc. These high-energy pieces, calling for technical bravado and some for lush romanticism, seemed to be joined at the hip, and made for an evening that was both serene and breathtakingly beautiful. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
Vincent Dubois, Titular Organist of the Cathedral of Soissons, France, played a splendid recital at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in downtown Cleveland on Wednesday, November 18. Indeed, he played almost enough music for two recitals, but such was the quality of his playing that the program did not seem overly long. The music chosen was standard repertoire by the big names of the organ world: Johann Sebastian Bach, Louis Vierne, Olivier Messiaen, Marcel Dupré, Charles-Marie Widor, César Franck, and Maurice Duruflé. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Organized in 2004 and named in honor of the Galician violinist and painter Manuel Quiroga (whose career was attenuated after he was struck by a truck in New York City’s Times Square in 1937), the Spanish string quartet Cuarteto Quiroga paid an impressive visit to the Rocky River Chamber Music Society on Monday evening, November 16. Their performances of music by Mozart, Webern, and Brahms at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church were full of exquisite details but not at the expense of a broad, lyrical narrative uniquely tailored for each work. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Nostalgia was much in evidence at Severance Hall on Thursday evening, November 19. Music director laureate Christoph von Dohnányi, who conducted The Cleveland Orchestra from 1984-2002, made his annual return visit to the podium, obviously drawing a large audience of fans. Additionally, the premiere of Richard Sortomme’s Concerto for Two Violas on Themes from Smetana’s “From My Life” String Quartet served as a fond recollection of the composer’s long friendship with its dedicatee, principal viola Robert Vernon, who is scheduled to retire at the end of the Blossom season in 2016. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
On Monday evening, November 15, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra played Severance Hall for the first time since 2004. The concert also marked the Severance Hall debut for Zubin Mehta, world-renowned conductor and the Orchestra’s music director since 1991. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
A concert of “new music” conjures up for some listeners the works of the atonal and twelve-tone works of the likes of Arnold Schoenberg and his disciples, the austere works of Pierre Boulez, or the dense modernist Harrison Birtwistle. But these days composers of contemporary “classical” music are no longer bound by such musico-political considerations. There is no “accepted” modern style. Instead composers now draw upon a wide variety of inspiration: old works, pop and rock music, jazz and world music, among other influences. [Read more…]