by Stephanie Manning
In the two years since the Cleveland Institute of Music’s centennial, Margaret Brouwer’s Blue Streak Ensemble has been patiently waiting for the opportunity to celebrate — and they weren’t about to let another chance pass by. After three pandemic-related delays, the concert finally presented on May 22 at CIM’s Mixon Hall was a testament to both the institution and the resilience of the ensemble itself.
Sunday’s program, the first in a pair of performances from the ensemble, featured four contemporary works with instrumentations ranging from one to six players. It also paid homage to the lineage of CIM composition faculty with a work by Donald Erb — the second performance, on Tuesday the 24th, highlighted Marcel Dick and Keith Fitch. (Brouwer herself was the head of the composition department from 1996 to 2008.)
Franz Welser-Möst led the final bows on Saturday night at Severance, like the star of any show should. The Cleveland Orchestra’s music director is in his element presiding over the ensemble’s annual opera production, which this season packs the drama. Verdi’s Otello — in a concert staging that opened May 21 and runs for two more performances (May 26 and 29) — demands big voices, instrumental forces to match, and a conductor who can give it all shape and direction. 
Unless you have been through it, it is impossible to grasp the brutalities of war. You cannot imagine the violence, the hunger, the desperation, the isolation. You cannot reckon the infinite death sowed through the ground. Brutality is the reality. It creates a different kind of human.
Of the three venues that Quire Cleveland’s artistic director Jay White chose for the ensemble’s “Music for Grand Spaces” trilogy, none fits the description quite so aptly as the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in downtown Cleveland. It was there that Quire opened its series of programs designed for churches with a resonant acoustic on Friday, May 13 with a splendid selection of pieces.
An immigrant mother, struggling with her sense of identity, makes a plea to her new homeland in the hopes that her newborn daughter will have an easier time navigating it. This sentiment, presented in musical form, was especially fitting for a concert on Mother’s Day — not to mention one with a high percentage of mothers in the audience.
Talk about perfect timing. In this abysmal era so saturated with our blood and tears, along comes the Canton Symphony Orchestra (CSO) with its inspiring April 30 concert, called Music For Humanity, presenting a lavish feast to feed yearning souls.
Tuesday Musical has been straying from its usual formula in a way that seems to be working. The Akron concert series brought its season to a close last Wednesday with a performance that exemplified the “classical with a twist” style the presenter has hit upon lately.
Turning thirty is a Big Deal for an individual, but no less significant a milestone for a musical ensemble. Just ask the musicians of Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, who marked that occasion with a trio of concerts last weekend led by its founder Jeannette Sorrell.
Having discovered surprisingly little overlap between their mailing lists, Cleveland’s two main purveyors of chamber music decided to bring their followers together on April 5 to enjoy a joint concert at the Maltz Performing Arts Center.