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Credo: Complete Bach Brandenburg Concerti in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance (July 26)

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by Carlyn Kessler

Credo-BrandenburgOn Sunday night, July 26, participants in Credo’s Brandenburg Project performed all six of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg concerti at Severance Hall’s Reinberger Chamber Hall, following an intensive weeklong festival and July 24 performance at Symphony Center in Chicago, IL. The program seemed right at home in Reinberger. The ornate hall, with its candlesticks and gold plating resembling an 18th century salon, perfectly transported audience members back to Bach’s time, if only for an evening.

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Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom with Stéphane Denève & Paul Lewis (July 25)

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by Robert Rollin

LEWIS-PaulLast Saturday night at Blossom, The Cleveland Orchestra, under French guest conductor Stéphane Denève, presented a lively, varied, and interesting concert of Russian and German music. The evening’s highlight was Robert Schumann’s A Minor Piano Concerto, Op. 56 sensitively performed by talented British pianist Paul Lewis. Successful as a soloist with many of the world’s great orchestras, as a recitalist, and as a recording artist for the Harmonia Mundi label, Lewis tossed off the difficult passagework with the elegant grace obtainable only through major professional experience.

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Cuyahoga Valley Chamber Players at Happy Days Lodge (July 26)

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by James Flood

Music-by-Nature-2The Cuyahoga Valley Chamber Players (CVCP) performed last Sunday evening, July 26, at the Happy Days Lodge in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The ensemble comprised flutist Jane Berkner, cellist Miles Richardson, guitarist Stephen Aron, and violist Ann Cirvenic, who arranged themselves in a variety of combinations which included two duets, a trio and a quartet. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Jahja Ling: Franklin Cohen farewell concerto (July 26)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cohen-072615When it’s time for a musician to say goodbye to an ensemble and its audience after 39 years, what piece should he choose for his swan song? Long-time Cleveland Orchestra principal clarinet Franklin Cohen revisited Carl Maria von Weber’s second concerto on Sunday night, July 26 at Blossom, winning a standing ovation before he even played a note. [Read more…]

Decho Ensemble at Bop Stop (July 19)

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by Mike Telin

Decho-EnsembleWhen the Belgian instrument maker Adolph Sax invented the instrument that bears his name in 1840, it’s unlikely that he imagined the many ways the saxophone would be employed by musicians of differing musical genres. On Sunday, July 19 at the Bop Stop, the excellent Decho Ensemble (Jacob Swanson, soprano sax, Sarah Marchitelli, alto sax, Nicholas Child, tenor sax, Jared Yackiw, baritone sax) played a concert of music on vintage instruments that highlighted the saxophone’s classical origins, as well as celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Adolph Sax. [Read more…]

Review: La Cambiale di Matrimonio at Kent/Blossom Festival (July 18)

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by Mike Telin

Rossini-CambialeAfter a nearly thirty-year absence, vocal music returned to the Kent/Blossom Festival on Saturday, July 18 in Ludwig Recital Hall, and what an enjoyable afternoon it was. In fact, there are so many good things to say it’s difficult to know where to begin. Let’s start with the delightful musical selection — Rossini’s first professional opera, La Cambiale di Matrimonio or The Marriage Contract, performed in a costumed concert version sung in Italian with English supertitles (Sarah Harvey). [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom: big turnout for a festive opener (July 11)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Blossom-Lawn-071115A crowd estimated at 10,000 blanketed the lawn and filled the center section of the vast pavilion on Saturday evening, July 11, as The Cleveland Orchestra settled into its Blossom season. The program included striking performances of Olivier Messiaen’s L’Ascension and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 led by music director Franz Welser-Möst. That seemingly odd pairing of pieces added up to an evening of orchestral and choral ecstasy from two very different points of view.

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Ohio Light Opera: Oh, Kay, a madcap comedy with a bit of everything, set to music by Gershwin

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by Kelly Ferjutz, special to clevelandclassical

OLO-Oh-KayGet your laughter on, as you’ll surely need it in this marvelous recreation of the 1926 Broadway musical that the super-talented Gershwin brothers wrote for the great Gertrude Lawrence. With a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse and a little help from Howard Dietz, Oh, Kay! is, in the words of director Ted Christopher, “a madcap romp — a drawing room comedy, with a  Busby Berkley dance routine in the middle of it.” [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra “Summers@Severance” with pianist Igor Levit (July 10)

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by Nicholas Jones

LEVIT-IgorFriday’s Cleveland Orchestra program, the first of 2015’s three Summers@Severance concerts, opened with Olivier Messiaen’s Hymne, composed in 1933. The score was lost during the war and reconstructed from memory by the composer in 1947. The original title (Hymne au Saint-Sacrement) indicated explicitly that it was an act of reverence to the Holy Eucharist of the Catholic Mass, and it apparently represents that ritual. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: Gilbert & Sullivan’s Ruddigore (The Witch’s Curse), July 10

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by J.D. Goddard

RuddigorePosterOn Friday, July 10, after the customary singing of God Save the Queen, the curtain went up on the second performance of Ohio Light Opera’s Ruddigore in Freedlander Theater at the College of Wooster, and the audience was immediately swept into the action in the Cornish town of Rederring. Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1887 operetta has a rather baffling story line and a whimsical musical style. [Read more…]

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