ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad

Re•Views

Oberlin Artist Recital Series: American Brass Quintet (Feb. 20)

by

by Kevin McLaughlin

On Friday, February 20 in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel, the American Brass Quintet reasserted its long-standing theory that five brass instruments can sustain an evening with the seriousness of a string quartet.

The program calls them “the most distinguished” ensemble of its type —    and after Friday’s concert I’m inclined to believe it. Founded at Juilliard in 1960, when the brass quintet was still a recital novelty, the ABQ helped to expand the repertoire through commissioning new works and decades of touring.

For this program, they drew on repertory stretching from Elizabethan song to new American modernism.

The group — Tiago Linck and Brandon Ridenour (trumpets), Eric Reed (horn), Hillary Simms (trombone), and John D. Rojak (bass trombone) — began the program four centuries back with two pieces by John Dowland, the English lutenist whose songs of melancholy were heard in courts and taverns alike.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Museum of Art: drummer Makaya McCraven (Feb. 18)

by

by Max Newman

On his website, Makaya McCraven refers to himself as a “Beat Scientist.” It’s an interesting moniker, but those who were present for McCraven’s performance at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on Wednesday, February 18 will know exactly what the spellbinding drummer was getting at. Indeed, his concert was a study of beat-making, an intersection of synthesized and organic sound, a beautiful amalgamation of the mechanical and the natural. Makaya McCraven was true to his word.

To refer to what was played by the group (McCraven on drums, Junius Paul on bass, and Marquis Hill on trumpet) as a collection of “songs” belies the fluidity of the music. It was more of a shape-shifting sonic voyage, with beautifully craggy melodies melting into one another, ear-tingling lead lines linking together via ambient moments chock-full of electronic bleeps and bloops, rhythms mutating, trailing off, and then exploding once more.

[Read more…]

Taplin Quartet journeys to Heights Arts and beyond for debut (Feb. 8)

by

by Peter Feher

The Taplin Quartet, Cleveland’s newest chamber ensemble, gave its first local performance this month — and at the same time traveled to Europe, Asia, and Oceania. In fact, the group’s world tour brought along the entire audience at Dunham Tavern in Midtown on Sunday afternoon, February 8.

“From East to West,” the Quartet’s debut program — presented as part of Heights Arts’ Close Encounters concert series — took listeners on a musical trek across three continents while never straying too far from home.

It helped to be embarking with four familiar guides. Violinists Katherine Bormann and Zhan Shu, violist Gareth Zehngut, and cellist Martha Baldwin are all Cleveland Orchestra members, and together as the Taplin, they have the advantage of a shared starting point.

The skills essential for great orchestral playing — rhythmic precision, interpretive clarity, and a quick ability to adapt — were also what kept the Quartet confidently on course during Sunday’s performance.

[Read more…]

Barbara Hannigan goes all-American with The Cleveland Orchestra (Feb. 12)

by

by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Conductor Barbara Hannigan brought an unusual playlist to her appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra on Thursday evening February 12: music by four American composers who rarely share a stage, and who have very different ideas about what American music sounds like.

The Severance Music Center program was a sequence of sharply defined pieces, each showing a different side of American music — experimental, modernist, lyrical, and theatrical. And in Hannigan’s expressive hands, those contrasts felt intentional and well placed.

[Read more…]

Imani Winds & Boston Brass at Tuesday Musical (Feb. 10)

by

by Kevin McLaughlin

On the cold Tuesday evening of February 10, two venerable ensembles — the Imani Winds and Boston Brass —  were brought together by Akron’s Tuesday Musical in E.J. Thomas Hall. The large audience was ready for something lively, and the players obliged, spending the better part of two hours passing enthralling music back and forth.

Outfitted in blue jackets, Boston Brass — José Sibaja and Jeff Conner (trumpets), Chris Castellanos (horn), Domingo Pagliuca (trombone), and William Russell (tuba) — introduced pieces and corrected each other’s pronunciation with good humor. “You may be wondering how guys in those jackets get work,” Conner quipped. José Sibaja, who grew up in Puerto Rico, took particular care with Spanish names, and was playfully merciless when his colleagues missed a vowel.

Dmitri Shostakovich’s Galop, one of the composer’s theater pieces from the 1930s, was up first. Articulation stayed clean even at the fast tempo, and the group reveled in the music’s dry humor. Sibaja and Conner impressed with their technical ease, while Pagliuca and Russell kept things grounded.

[Read more…]

Resonance Project rings in the Lunar New Year with “Qin and Strings” (Feb. 7)

by

by Stephanie Manning

Gazing at Chinese paintings in the shān shuǐ (山水) style, whose artists use ink and a brush to create beautiful landscapes, you might notice two patterns. First, any people depicted are often dwarfed by the enormous scenery. Second, the painters don’t need to cover every inch of canvas — sometimes they let the blank space do the talking.

This appreciation of nature and the use of space influenced Irwin Shung and his piece Seven Chinese Characters, as the pianist and composer explained at the Resonance Project concert on February 7. That work opened the evening’s program, “Qin and Strings,” presented at Forest Hill Church in Cleveland Heights. The group timed this celebration of Chinese music to the upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations.

Using the projector screen on the side of the stage, Shung clicked through a carousel of images to give historical and cultural context to the program — a fusion of performance and pre-concert talk that worked very smoothly. Eventually he sat down at the piano to perform Seven Chinese Characters, a flowing and meditative journey that also draws inspiration from Li Bai’s poem “Quiet Night Thought” and a traditional melody called “Jasmine.”

[Read more…]

No Exit Presents: LIGAMENT (Feb. 7)

by

by Kevin McLaughlin

As is often the case, the February 7 No Exit Presents concert featuring LIGAMENT demanded close attention.

The modest forces and the intimate setting of Praxis Fiber Workshop placed the focus squarely on vocalist Anika Kildegaard and bassist Will Yager, in a program of works by Stefano Pierini, Ruby Fulton, James Dillon, Amy Beth Kirsten, and Katherine Balch. The duo, careful shapers of sound, drew listeners into worlds that were by turns surprising, unsettling, and utterly absorbing.

The evening opened with a brief set by the Cleveland State University Percussion Ensemble, led by Katalin La Favre, establishing the concert’s emphasis on quiet listening. With the lights lowered, the first of three works — a solo for acquarian — introduced a xylophone-adjacent instrument with glass bars mounted on a wood and stone frame. Without resonators, the instrument’s sound remained hushed, rarely rising above mezzo piano. Colored light shining from beneath the instrument lent the scene a dusky, piano-bar atmosphere.

[Read more…]

Manacorda, Cleveland Orchestra magic leaves nothing ‘Unfinished’ at Severance (Feb. 5)

by

by Peter Feher
This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Classical musicians have exhausted just about every attempt to complete Franz Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony in the two centuries since the composer’s death at age 31.

But the Cleveland Orchestra doesn’t give in easily to creative despair. With guest conductor Antonello Manacorda, the ensemble has fashioned an effective, elegant substitute for the “missing” movements of Schubert’s score.

[Read more…]

CityMusic Cleveland: American Dreams (Feb. 5)

by

by Kevin McLaughlin

Stop the presses! Half of the originally advertised program will be different, CityMusic’s managing director Henry Peyrebrune announced prior to their February 5 concert at Fairmount Presbyterian. Works by Elliott Carter and John Coltrane were postponed for another day and replaced by gentler pieces by Alan Hovhaness and Henry Cowell.

Taken as a whole, America @ 250: American Dreams, centered on a question shared by many American composers in the mid-twentieth century: how to write music that feels rooted, timeless, and personal without leaning too heavily on European models. The answers varied widely, from Ernest Bloch’s consciously historical gestures to Copland’s open, optimistic language.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Music Society: Quinn Kelsey with Craig Ketter (Feb. 3)

by

by Kevin McLaughlin

The Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s February 3 recital, presented by Hawaiian baritone Quinn Kelsey with pianist Craig Ketter, offered something both rare and reassuring: a major operatic singer heard up close, singing beautifully and without a lot of fuss.

They offered a program of early- and late-twentieth century American and English songs by Aaron Copland, Florence Price, John Alden Carpenter, Margaret Bonds, Gerald Finzi, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. From the opening notes of Copland’s “The Boatmen’s Dance,” Kelsey demonstrated a full, ringing voice that filled the room.

[Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us