by Jarrett Hoffman
After highlighting music by three members of the Oberlin composition faculty, Timothy Weiss and the Conservatory’s Contemporary Music Ensemble (CME) have continued their Oberlin Music label offerings with another triptych of works by composers from the present day.
Norman | Trigos | Broening, released in May, begins with Andrew Norman’s Gran Turismo for eight violins. And if you’re familiar with the auto-racing video game series that gave the work its title — one among a few inspirations — you won’t be surprised by the blazing speed. Even the few slow sections, beautifully written and sensitively phrased, provoke a sense of suspense: thrills await around the corner.
Tri-C JazzFest was back in the swing of things this summer. After a 2020 season of virtual performances, the festival returned to an all-star, in-person lineup this year, thanks to some patient planning. The date was pushed from June to September, and the venue shifted from Playhouse Square to an all-outdoor space, Cain Park.
Although Rachmaninoff is said to have called him the greatest composer of his lifetime, the music of Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951) has never achieved the notoriety of his friend and constant supporter.
In darkened theaters around the world last year, just one small sign of life remained — the ghost light, a single bulb traditionally placed onstage overnight while the space is unoccupied. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, these ghost lights became small symbols of hope, keeping the lights on until the performers and the audience could return again.
When British musicians have needed a piece of memorial music, their choice since the turn of the 20th century has often been the “Nimrod” movement from Edward Elgar’s 
In their debut album Diffusion, the Verona Quartet celebrates folk music’s influence on string quartet language at the beginning of the 20th century — a style that reflects their values as an international ensemble with members hailing from all across the globe.
By unofficial consensus, it’s best when virtual concerts wrap up in under an hour. The new music ensemble No Exit took that idea to another level on Friday, August 27 with a pre-recorded video of less than half that length.
Shakespeare in the park got an update over the weekend when the musicians of the Cleveland Chamber Collective partnered with Inlet Dance Theatre for a modern take on The Tempest. The collaborative result, Caliban Ascendant, premiered to an enthusiastic audience at Cain Park’s Evans Amphitheater on August 29.
Few new works performed by The Cleveland Orchestra in recent memory have been as musically imaginative and sonically arresting as Caroline Shaw’s Watermark, which received its first Cleveland Orchestra performance at Blossom Music Center on Saturday evening, August 28. Pianist Jonathan Biss, for whom the piece was written, was the superb soloist, with associate conductor Vinay Parameswaran at the podium.
The Cleveland Orchestra wasn’t going to let a season go by without Jahja Ling. The veteran conductor was back at Blossom Music Center on August 22, picking up just where he left off.