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Cleveland Chamber Choir shines with music to mark the hours and seasons (Oct. 25)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Often called The Vespers, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil reaches for something beyond an evening service. Its fifteen movements, rooted in Russian Orthodox chant, rise and surround like incense — not to display magnificence, but to deepen the mystery. Rachmaninoff was so fond of the work that he requested the fifth movement, the Nunc dimittis, be sung at his funeral.

On Friday evening, October 25, the Cleveland Chamber Choir, directed by Gregory Ristow, presented this monumental work in Trinity Cathedral — a resonant space of tradition and calm, where the beauty of the setting matched the beauty of the sound.

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Tuesday Musical opens season with epic works from pianist Marc-André Hamelin (Oct. 21)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

On Tuesday evening, October 21, pianist Marc-André Hamelin opened Tuesday Musical’s 2025–26 season in Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall with a program of unusual range and scale. He mapped the human mind and heart across an often-epic landscape — Beethoven’s granite Hammerklavier, Robert Schumann’s not merely scenic Waldszenen, and Ravel’s hallucinatory Gaspard de la nuit.

Composed between 1817 and 1818, the Hammerklavier marks Beethoven’s turn toward the monumental and visionary. Deaf by this time, he wrote for some idealized instrument and listener — music indifferent to ordinary technical or emotional limits. Deemed nearly unplayable at its premiere, it later found champions, Liszt foremost among them, who revealed its vast scope.

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Cleveland Orchestra, Chorus, and soloists excel with “Ode to Joy” performance (Oct. 23)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Few melodies in the classical canon hold as much name recognition as Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” The beloved tune, set to the words of German poet Friedrich Schiller, comes from the composer’s Symphony No. 9 — a revolutionary piece both in its form and in its celebration of the indomitable human spirit.

The desire to witness such joyful music making in person is undoubtedly what drove a large audience to Mandel Hall at Severance Music Center on Thursday, Oct. 23. And it’s safe to say that the Cleveland Orchestra, Chorus and soloists did not disappoint.

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BW Opera’s dystopian Dido and Aeneas (Oct. 11)

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by Stephanie Manning

The contemporary relevance of doomed love, betrayal, and political maneuvering  continues to endear Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas to modern audiences. But the recent staging of the 17th-century opera by Baldwin Wallace Opera Theater made a more direct connection to today’s political climate.

Set “within the dystopian framework of A Handmaid’s Tale,” the all-new production, directed by Scott Skiba, drew parallels between Purcell’s tale and the setting of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 book. It’s an ambitious premise, and one that ultimately wobbled rather than sticking its landing. Regardless, the one-hour work featured lovely performances across the board from the student cast.

The Helen Theatre at Playhouse Square provided an intimate, black box venue, giving the small audience up-close sightlines to the action. The cast of the 3:00 pm show on October 11 set a high bar for singing and acting quality, anchored by Christol Stewart as Dido, who absolutely shone with her dignified voice and bearing. Conductor Jason Aquila led a string quartet from the harpsichord. [Read more…]

Miró Quartet celebrates its 30th with Oberlin Beethoven cycle (Oct. 10-12) 

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by Daniel Hathaway

Three decades after its founding at the Oberlin Conservatory, the Miró Quartet celebrated that milestone by playing a complete Beethoven cycle in six concerts from October 10-12 in venues throughout the Lorain County campus.

That musical marathon of sixteen string quartets, performed in the order they were written, neatly coincided with Oberlin’s Homecoming Weekend, a nostalgic occasion for the Quartet’s founding members — first violinist Daniel Ching and cellist Joshua Gindele — as well as for Oberlin alumni in general, who helped swell the audiences for the well-attended Beethoven cycle.

Second violinist William Fedkenheuer and violist John Largess, who joined the ensemble a bit later, complete a well-oiled machine that has something distinct to say musically. They play as a single unit with a rich, blended sound and well-matched articulations, offering an experience that’s both exciting and transcendent.

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Miró Quartet at Finney Chapel (Oct. 10)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

At Oberlin’s Finney Chapel on Friday evening, October 10, the Miró Quartet continued its complete Beethoven cycle and marked its thirty-year homecoming with the three “Razumovsky” quartets of Op. 59. Founded at Oberlin in 1995 by violinist Daniel Ching and cellist Joshua Gindele, the group later took its enduring form with the arrivals of second violinist William Fedkenheuer and violist John Largess.

After winning a competition hat-trick at Fischoff, Banff, and Naumburg, as well as an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Miró found a home as Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Texas at Austin. Returning to Oberlin for this six-concert Beethoven marathon gave the evening an air that was both valedictory and self-renewing.

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Pianist Daniil Trifonov brings Brahms’ vision to life with Cleveland Orchestra (Oct. 9)

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by Peter Feher

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Johannes Brahms took more than two decades to compose a follow-up to his First Piano Concerto, but audiences at Severance Music Center have only had to wait two years for the sequel.

Pianist Daniil Trifonov is back with The Cleveland Orchestra this week, tackling Brahms’ monumental Second Concerto after playing the First here in 2023. And in a neat pairing, Music Director Franz Welser-Möst has programmed Sergei Prokofiev’s Seventh Symphony as the companion piece — the Sixth having accompanied Trifonov on his previous appearance.

Reversing the usual performance order (soloist on the first half, big symphonic work on the second), Brahms was the main event after intermission Thursday in Mandel Concert Hall. It’s a sensible way to present a piece that often resembles a symphony in style, scope and sheer impact.

[Read more…]

BlueWater combines two art forms in “Musical Momentum” (Oct. 4)

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by Stephanie Manning

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra opened their sixteenth season last weekend with a doubly enticing concept. Not only would audience members hear works by Elgar, Albinoni, and Handel, but they would also see these works brought to life by the dancers of Ohio Contemporary Ballet.

This collaboration between the two organizations isn’t new. Back in 2020, when Ohio Contemporary Ballet was known as Verb Ballets, the pandemic derailed plans for a similar concert, resulting in a pivot to video.

That admirable broadcast succeeded even though the musicians and dancers never performed in the same room. But as their October 4 event at the Lakewood Civic Auditorium reaffirmed, there’s nothing quite like the magic of live, in-person performance. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra performs Mahler, Honegger with philosophical depth (Oct. 2)

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By Daniel Hathaway|Cleveland Classical

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra set a high musical bar early in their new season at Severance Music Center on Thursday with totally committed performances of unique works by Arthur Honegger and Gustav Mahler.

Honegger set out to express the horror of World War II in three arresting movements named after religious texts in his Symphony No. 3, subtitled “Symphonie liturgique.”

And Mahler, who once said, “A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything,” turned away from that idea in his symphonic song cycle “Das lied von der Erde,” crafting a six-movement work that simply sought to capture the experience of being human on planet Earth.

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: Dido and Aeneas (Oct. 3)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Some operas overwhelm us with spectacle, others with sheer length. Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, first performed in the late 1680s, does neither. Barely an hour long, it holds a world of feeling — new love, dark magic, and nobility in death.

On Friday evening, October 3 at Greystone Hall in Akron, Apollo’s Fire gave the work youthful resonance by returning it to Purcell’s premiere setting, a London boarding school for girls. Jeannette Sorrell’s direction added a Shakespearean pulse — brisk, lively, and human. The performance opened with the chaconne from Purcell’s King Arthur, an elegant and radiant overture that set the evening’s tone.

Sorrell’s newly written prologue replaced Purcell’s lost original and set the scene as a school play that turns suddenly real — a nod to the opera’s first performances by students and to the scale of its story. Her approach emulated the fast-moving style of seventeenth-century English theater, when audiences stood at the players’ feet and tragedy mingled with laughter. [Read more…]

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