by Mike Telin
With a catalogue of works as robust as that of celebrated American composer Jeffrey Mumford, the task of selecting a group of compositions to be featured on a recording could be quite daunting. Happily, on his recently released two CD set titled though a stillness brightening on the Albany Records label, Mumford has painstakingly chosen ten selections that highlight his prowess as a composer.
In his introduction to the CD, writer Christian Carey notes that “Jeffrey Mumford’s music is filled with counterpoint. Whether written for large ensembles or intimate chamber forces, it features a counterpoint of melodic lines – and a counterpoint of ideas… Through the use of a wide range of dynamics and articulations, they embody a number of moods.” Carey’s words perfectly describe the ten works featured on this recording – colorfully nuanced, layered musical motives are abundant. [Read more…]
On Tuesday, July 1, the house was full and the audience bustled with excitement for Ohio Light Opera’s opening performance of Pirates of Penzance in Freedlander Hall on the campus of Wooster college. The customary standing and singing of “God save the Queen” set the tone for the afternoon’s English fare. As the curtain raised we were immediately swept into the action, a rocky seashore on the coast of Cornwall, town of Penzance.
Performance experience is obviously invaluable for young musicians, but playing at a conservatory in front of peers and professors who know the piece intimately can be intimidating. As such, an audience out just to enjoy free music on a pleasant Sunday afternoon is well-appreciated. Hence Kent/Blossom Music Festival’s well-attended student recital at the airy Hudson Library on July 6. (There were a total of four student concerts last weekend, the other three in Ludwig Hall at Kent State University).
30-year-old German-Italian violinist Augustin Hadelich is developing a reputation for stepping in to save concerts at the last minute. In 2008, on less than a week’s notice, he replaced Julian Rachlin in Prokofiev’s second concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl (an occasion when conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya was also an emergency substitute for the ailing Edo de Waart).
Ida Kavafian is clearly a devoted teacher. She serves on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music, Bard College Conservatory, and Juilliard, and was the Kent/Blossom Music Festival’s Kulas Guest Artist this year, giving master classes and coachings to student musicians. As part of that residency, she gave a recital in Ludwig Recital Hall at Kent State University on July 3.
Three has been the magic number throughout ChamberFest 2014, and nowhere more than in its closing concert in CIM’s Mixon Hall on Sunday afternoon. The music was rich and, as usual with ChamberFest, the musicianship masterful. This very enjoyable program, titled “3X,” included three works, each featuring instruments in multiples of three.
“The Bach Legacy” is the overriding theme in this summer’s Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, and artistic director Kenneth Slowik decided to devote the second faculty concert on Friday, June 21 to a partial replication of an historic benefit concert given in Hamburg in April of 1786 by Johann Sebastian Bach’s most celebrated son, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. (Program pictured here.)
Warning to all witches: you’re courting danger if you try to turn children into gingerbread in Northeast Ohio. You’ve been punished for that many times recently — at the Cleveland Institute of Music (March 2012), at Youngstown State University (April 2013), at the Oberlin Conservatory (November 2013) and at Baldwin Wallace University (February 2014). The children rebelled once again last weekend at the Barlow Center in Hudson, as Nightingale Opera Theatre staged three performances of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. And once again, the witch didn’t survive the trip through her own oven. I saw the show, which was sung in English, on Sunday, June 29.
On a beautiful summer day last week, we drove to Wooster to spend the afternoon in Shangri-La – or, more specifically, to watch Ohio Light Opera’s opening performance of Johann Strauss, Jr.’s comic masterpiece, Die Fledermaus (“The Bat”).