by Peter Feher
The August 13 program at Blossom Music Center was a grand finale in all but name. The Cleveland Orchestra played the last classical concert of its summer season there (the group would save a couple of preview performances for Severance later in the month, ahead of setting out on its 2022 European tour), and the repertoire was exceptional and expansive to match the occasion.
Now, both pieces on Saturday might be called one thing, but they really sound like another. “Symphony” is a title that would fit Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, as well as John Adams’ modern masterpiece for orchestra, Harmonielehre. [Read more…]
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has an advantage when it comes to commanding a crowd. The ensemble of scarcely more than a dozen string players performed for a packed Blossom Music Center on August 27 and seemed entirely at home in the huge venue. Saturday’s concert brought the summer classical season here to a close in understated yet completely gripping fashion.
Pianist Michelle Cann freely admits she was as unaware as everyone else about the music of Florence Price until a trove of Price’s compositions turned up in the composer’s former summer home in Chicago in 2009.
After impressive performances by six young violinists during the second round of the Cooper International Violin Competition, the jury selected three to advance to the final round. On August 19 at Oberlin Conservatory’s Warner Concert Hall, the talented violinists presented concertos by Tchaikovsky and Brahms with the Canton Symphony under the direction of Gerhardt Zimmermann.
Because it usually takes itself so seriously, classical music is a sitting duck for parody and satire. But the art form also has a divinely installed funny bone that allows its artists to lampoon themselves and their craft, even while producing high quality performances.
Bianca Ciubancan (16, Chicago, Il) began the afternoon session with Jessie Montgomery’s Rhapsody No. 1 for solo violin. Playing with a warm, rich sound, Ciubancan brought a thoughtful, intimate approach to the work, highlighting each of its distinct episodes. 
On Sunday, July 24 the piano team of Yaron Kohlberg and Bishara Haroni — Duo Amal — kicked off Piano Cleveland’s PianoDays @CLE in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Some music never goes out of style. The famous first bars of Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto opened the program on August 6 at Blossom Music Center with a flourish. And the brilliance hardly let up after that, with The Cleveland Orchestra sounding superb in a pair of works that put symphonic tradition front and center.
The crowd at Blossom Music Center on July 16 received two concerts for the price of one. The Cleveland Orchestra went in a jazzy direction with the program’s first half, before turning to the dazzling symphonic repertoire that this ensemble does best.