By Kevin McLaughlin
On Sunday, January 18, the New York–based Relic Ensemble presented an imaginative interweaving of Baroque music and Homer’s Odyssey at Heights Theater. The project used historical layering as its technique, allowing ancient Greece, Baroque Europe, and the present to meet on the premise that an epic can be retold in different ways without losing its force.
Operating from its early-music comfort zone, Relic assembled a sequence of Baroque movements, chosen for their affect and fitted to eight episodes from Homer’s tale. The music leaned toward illustration rather than direct dramatic correspondence — a tension that would surface more fully as the evening unfolded. Still, the fleet, precise, and often virtuosic playing of the ensemble carried the evening.
Despite the frigid Wednesday weather dumping snow outside the Cleveland Museum of Art, January 14 almost felt like a pleasant spring day inside Gartner Auditorium. That phenomenon had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with Trio Seoul, whose warm camaraderie and excellent musicianship brightened the venue considerably.
