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CIPC Quarter-Finalists show their musical personalities

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by Mike Telin & Daniel Hathaway

Relieved of some of the customary competition repertory requirements, the sixteen pianists who played in the five CIPC Quarter-Final Rounds this week were pretty much given carte blanche to share their musical personalities with the jury and audience through their own choice of repertory.

This change made for the most interesting programming to be heard to date at the Cleveland competition. Over the five sessions, no piece was played twice.

Those of us who have been following CIPC for years probably rejoiced at not hearing multiple performances of the Chopin “Winter Wind” etude, or sitting through three performances of the same lengthy Schumann work in a single evening. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra: Summers at Severance with Petr Popelka & James Ehnes (July 25)

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by Peter Feher

Movie music has been cropping up on more and more Cleveland Orchestra programs in recent seasons — even when it’s not advertised.

This was all to the good at Severance Music Center on Thursday, July 25. The Orchestra sounded very much its polished self in the second concert of this year’s Summers at Severance series, the set of strictly classical offerings that the ensemble has brought back to balance out this summer’s lighter programming at Blossom Music Center.

All the same, summer was in full swing on Euclid Avenue. The front terrace outside Severance was strung with lights and set up with white tents serving refreshments. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra, Kent Blossom Chamber Orchestra delight in Blossom performance (July 27)

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This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

by Kevin McLaughlin | ClevelandClassical.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — Finnish guest conductor Hannu Lintu strode onstage at the Blossom Music Center on July 27, all six-feet-plus of him, as purposefully as the hero in Lemminkäinen’s Return. The opening work on The Cleveland Orchestra’s program on Saturday is the fourth tone poem in Jan Sibelius’s “Lemminkäinen Suite,” based on Finland’s national epic, the “Kalevala.”

All he needed was a horse. But then, with a turn toward the orchestra and a mighty downbeat, he unleashed equestrian fury from strings and woodwinds, allowing some brass aggression here and there. With loose-limbed, ropey arms and an occasional leg-lift, Lintu projected the relaxed potency of a warrior leading his team to victory. 

[Read more…]

The Concert Truck brings CIPC talent to Edgewater Beach (July 23)

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by Stephanie Manning

’Tis the season for outdoor concerts, and after a beautifully mild weather pattern swept in last weekend, this may be one of the best weeks this year to enjoy them. In other words: July 23 was the perfect day for a concert on the beach.

To be fair, the Concert Truck wasn’t actually on the sand at Edgewater Beach, but it was close — parked right outside the Beach House and facing the water. Beachgoers and locals gathered on a bright sunny day for the lunchtime concert, presented by the Cleveland International Piano Competition. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera’s The Arcadians: all upbeat, all the time (July 18)

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by Peter Feher

The Ohio Light Opera is traveling to a world terrifically out of time in The Arcadians, the company’s sixth and final production of the summer.

No, not Arcadia, the mythical realm where shepherds and nymphs always tell the truth and, as a result, never grow old. That vision of utopia lasts for only one act of Lionel Monckton, Howard Talbot, and Arthur Wimperis’ 1909 musical comedy. For the remainder of the show, we’re whisked to what would have been familiar territory for the three songwriters but what, in 2024, might seem like an even more fantastical setting: Edwardian England.

The delightful sense of dislocation owes a little to OLO’s staging and a lot to the inevitable reality that The Arcadians has aged. Like much turn-of-the-20th-century musical theater, the story here — by librettists Mark Ambient and Alexander M. Thompson — comes second to the songs. [Read more…]

Kent Blossom closes out Faculty Concert Series with two classics (July 17)

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by Stephanie Manning

With a program of only two pieces, both of them staples in chamber music repertoire, creating the conditions for a standout performance might be more difficult than usual. But the musicians in Kent Blossom Music Festival’s final entry in this year’s Faculty Concert Series knew what to do.

“Friendship is a requirement to open up and enjoy this piece,” clarinetist Afendi Yusuf said of the opener, Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet — though this sentiment could equally apply to Schubert’s Octet that followed. The July 17 performance in Kent State University’s Ludwig Recital Hall proved that the group had the friendship element in spades. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra delights with Mendelssohn, Berlioz and Beethoven at Blossom Music Center (July 20)

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This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

by Kevin McLaughlin | ClevelandClassical.com

CUYAHOGA  FALLS, Ohio — There were plenty of midsummer smiles at The Cleveland Orchestra’s Blossom Music Center concert on Saturday July 20, as Mendelssohn’s fairies cavorted, Veronique Gens’s lovely voice wafted forth, and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony danced everyone to their feet.

To begin, guest conductor Antonello Manacorda led a glittering performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream — so vivid and atmospheric you could swear that you spotted elves prancing on the lawn.

The opening woodwind chords that ushered us into Shakespeare’s magical world were well balanced and pure, largely thanks to the flute and clarinet playing of Jessica Sindell and Daniel McKelway. Violins scurrying at a fast but prudent tempo — and an impossibly soft but effective dynamic — summoned the fairies. Throughout, Manacorda’s gestures were expressive and economical.

[Read more…]

Leslie Odom Jr. blends jazz, R&B, and Broadway with The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom (July 21)

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This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

by Stephanie Manning | ClevelandClassical.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — When Leslie Odom Jr. emerged at Blossom Music Center midway through “Fly Me To The Moon,” which he had started offstage, the ensuing medley immediately set the tone for the evening. Preferring to let his vocals do all the talking, on Sunday, July 21, the singer’s concert with The Cleveland Orchestra was two almost-nonstop hours of musical delight.

Odom may be best-known for his Broadway pursuits, particularly for originating the role of Aaron Burr in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash-hit Hamilton. But he’s a true, multi-hyphenated artist who has made forays into Hollywood, television, and solo recordings. His Blossom setlist attested to his versatility, bringing together arrangements of jazz standards, pop hits, and his original material.

[Read more…]

Kent Blossom: Poiesis Quartet’s youthful energy abounds (July 10)

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by Peter Feher

It’s not just the student performances at this year’s Kent Blossom Music Festival that are infused with youthful energy.

The Wednesday, July 10 faculty concert in Ludwig Recital Hall brimmed with optimistic, enthusiastic music-making. The Poiesis Quartet, the string ensemble-in-residence at Kent Blossom this summer (a role filled in previous seasons by the venerable Miami String Quartet), has been together for less than two years. Yet this fresh-faced group — violinists Sarah Ma and Max Ball, violist Jasper de Boor, and cellist Drew Dansby, all recent alums of Oberlin Conservatory — already plays like an ensemble with a long and storied history.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra provides fireworks of the non-pyrotechnic kind (July 13)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — It was a night of fireworks at The Cleveland Orchestra’s Blossom Music Center concert on Saturday, July 13, even if there were no after-concert skyrockets. The Orchestra’s principal trumpet Michael Sachs deserves primary credit, supplying as he did a whole summer’s worth of pyrotechnics in a single trumpet concerto.

Also impressive was the young Venezuelan conductor Domingo Hindoyan, who in his Cleveland Orchestra debut, showed both flair and craft.

In Alexander Borodin’s exotic Polovtsian Dances, extracted from his opera Prince Igor (1887), Hindoyan also displayed a mastery of combining orchestral and choral forces. [Read more…]

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