by Peter Feher
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. [Read more…]
by Jacob Strauss
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.
On April 29th at SPACES gallery in Hingetown, No Exit’s program gave the audience music of total anxiety and horror, melancholic hope, and of life’s long continuity without much meaning. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
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.
You wouldn’t expect that acoustic from a glance at the nave, which is wide and long, but not especially lofty. But when I guest conducted a local amateur choir and professional orchestra in Beethoven’s Mass in C there a few years back, during the first rehearsal we released the final chord of the “Gloria” and listened in astonishment for the next several seconds. The sound continued to roll down the space like the big wave that surfers dream about. [Read more…]
by Stephanie Manning
Many musicians will remember exactly what they were rehearsing in March of 2020, when the music suddenly stopped. For The Cleveland Orchestra, that unlucky piece was Schubert’s Symphony No. 9, which at the time was only heard by a private audience of staff members. More than two years later, the Orchestra finally gave the work the live performance it deserved on May 12 — and the seats at Severance Music Center were plenty full.
Conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, the Orchestra was in their element for the popular symphony, also known as “The Great” — a nickname born not out of a value designation, but to differentiate it from a shorter work of Schubert’s also in C Major. Clocking in at just under an hour in total, the four demanding movements are a test of endurance, which prompted the woodwind section to enlist some assistant players.
by Stephanie Manning
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.
That is the narrative of Reena Esmail’s She Will Transform You, which opened the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’s spring concert on May 8. Led by music director Vinay Parameswaran at Severance Music Center, the young musicians were in fine form this past Sunday evening, and their performance delivered plenty of moments of outstanding musicianship.
by Tom Wachunas
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.
The first half of the evening featured two works conducted by the vivacious associate conductor Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz, beginning with Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No.1. Composed in 1986 by Joan Tower, the work was inspired by Aaron Copland’s iconic fanfare and employed the same instrumentation of brass and percussion.
Tower dedicated this surprisingly brief work to “women who take risks and are adventurous.” Adventurous to be sure. While the opening theme is a subtle echo of Copland’s, the CSO brass was remarkably bright, crisp and crackling in its relentless morphing of the motif into quick, layered variations, both delicate and discordant, robustly spiced with startling bursts of timpani. [Read more…]
by Peter Feher
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.
Nu Deco Ensemble, a Miami-based group that has gone on the road a couple times, took the stage at EJ Thomas Hall on May 4, bringing a setup that was part orchestra and part rock band. Jacomo Bairos conducted the ensemble, which included a string quartet, a medium-sized wind section, and a handful of players on guitars, keyboards, and percussion — all amplified.
Nu Deco can cover a range of genres with this instrumental variety. One mode the group easily adopts might be called “classical music reinvigorated,” in the vein of crossover projects like Mannheim Steamroller or the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
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.
The middle show, on Saturday in Mandel Hall at Severance Music Center, reflected the Orchestra’s stature as a group that can share a stage with distinguished ensembles in mainline venues. The programs on Friday and Sunday in churches in Akron and Bay Village took profit of Apollo’s Fire’s portability and its determination to bring music out to people where they are.
The programming was festive, featuring an overture, a solo motet, and a symphony by the divine Mozart, and unusual for highlighting the work of a fascinating, under- unexplored composer who could handily win a sword fight against five attackers in the afternoon, then dust himself off and play chamber music at night. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
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.
Although they tend the same vineyard, The Cleveland Chamber Music Society and ChamberFest Cleveland go about their mission differently. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
I was once told that it’s good to not think too much about life’s problems. However, there are more than enough reasons to ask yourself: why more isn’t being done to combat climate change? How much is corporate greed responsible for the changes? Why do people buy into mass marketing?
On April 2 at SPACES and presented by No Exit, the excellent Brooklyn-based Unheard-of//Ensemble — Ford Fourqurean (clarinet), Matheus Souza (violin), Iva Casian-Lakoš (cello), and Daniel Anastasio (piano and electronics) — presented three thought provoking works that challenged listeners to never stop thinking about these questions.