by Peter Feher
Ever since the pandemic upended concert schedules, the Akron Symphony has used the opportunity to expand its community offerings. The orchestra played a summer series in 2021, “Outside Voices,” the name alluding both to the changed setting — parks across the city — and to new programming — music outside the standard repertoire.
These initiatives continue this season with the group back home at E.J. Thomas Hall. The orchestra is maintaining its longstanding collaborations, like the annual Gospel Meets Symphony concert, but different this year is the sheer variety of local artists and new pieces that are on display.
“It gives us a cool factor we don’t normally have,” music director Christopher Wilkins said from the stage as an introduction to the world premiere on the program last Saturday, March 5.
The Harlem Quartet might consider changing its name to include an honorary fifth member. The string ensemble took the stage as part of Akron’s Tuesday Musical series on March 1, joined by pianist and composer Aldo López-Gavilán, whose close connection to the group brought out the best in each player.
BlueWater Chamber Orchestra’s concert at the Church of the Covenant on Saturday evening, March 5 checked all the boxes for a memorable concert experience.
Over the years, audiences have had the privilege of hearing many outstanding performances by winners of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’s annual concerto competition. But on Sunday, February 20, the sizable crowd at Severance Music Center witnessed nothing short of musical magic during Dasara Beta’s brilliant performance of Alexander Arutiunian’s Trumpet Concerto.
Time and time again, Les Délices has imbued a sense of creativity into the concert experience — particularly over the past two years, when pandemic restrictions called for some out-of-the-box thinking. On February 25 in Shaker Heights, their first in-person event since 2020 proved to be no exception, blending poetry and music for an engaging evening of storytelling.
Cleveland Chamber Choir’s hosting of choruses from Kent State and Cleveland State Universities in a joint concert on February 27 in CSU’s Waetjen Auditorium might have been reminiscent of multi-choir powwows from one’s schooldays, but the quality of repertoire, the level of singing, and efficient stage management raised the event to impressive heights.
Cleveland Chamber Music Society has recently had to deal with more than its fair share of postponements and cancellations, but when Cuarteto Casals cut short their U.S. Tour last month due to a medical emergency, the Society was lucky to be able to field a replacement.
Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time is already a production in itself. The music alone, not to mention the circumstances of its composition, is a lot to untangle.
What do you get when you combine the sounds of an organ, accordion, guitar, violin, and piano? A creative soundtrack to Les Vampires, of course.
“It takes so many people to put on a production, especially a new one,” Oberlin Opera professor and director Christopher Mirto said in a recent interview with this publication. And lots of time as well, especially when the gestation period for a new work coincides with a pandemic.