by Peter Feher
The Cleveland Orchestra could have partnered with the Cleveland Museum of Art for last weekend’s concerts. The give-and-take between composers and visual artists — and the historical movements that emerged in the process — inspired the program on Thursday, April 7 at Severance Music Center.
Actually, some of the Orchestra’s players — along with the week’s soloist, pianist Emanuel Ax — did end up at the museum the following evening, for a benefit concert in support of Ukraine. But before their night off, the performers put the relationship between music and art on dazzling display for the audience at Severance. Alan Gilbert conducted four works that ranged from the 19th century to the 21st and that showed what’s changed in the culture since. [Read more…]
Guitarist Berta Rojas’ in-person appearance at the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, a two-year journey which finally came to fruition on April 2, has not been without some major setbacks. First before her travels, when the pandemic forced Rojas to cancel her trip in March 2020, and second — and most heartbreaking — after her arrival, when her beloved guitar was stolen on April 1st.
Ailurophiles rejoice! There’s a new opera in town, created as many French Baroque titles were back in the day, out of bits and pieces of existing material, and the principal character is a large feline. (It’s actually a princess seeking to be rehumanized through the traditional heroic means of fulfilling a series of impossible challenges or quests.)
In many ways the current state of world affairs is strikingly similar to those Beethoven was experiencing as he entered his Late Period, which coincided with the defeat of Napoleon, the reinstatement of the monarchy, and economic depression.
The Akron Symphony set last weekend’s program moving — spinning, scurrying, and leaping across the stage, even if the musicians stayed in their seats. The April 2 concert at E.J. Thomas Hall brought out the dance element in a range of orchestral works, sometimes literally. Choreography, from ballet to flamenco to traditional Korean dance, accompanied two of the evening’s pieces.
It’s been said that six is the magic number of guests to invite to a dinner party. Fewer than that reduces the likelihood of witty repartée, and more than that risks having the party break up into multiple conversations. That principle also applies to casts of comic operas that depend on scintillating conversations and wild misperceptions to fuel the plot.
Half Mozart and half British, the repertory at Severance Music Center on Sunday afternoon, March 27 gave The Cleveland Orchestra multiple opportunities to shine under the baton of Dame Jane Glover, who organized the proceedings with a keen sense of style and narrative. And Dame Imogen Cooper, her compatriot in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, crafted a memorable account of Mozart’s richly symphonic Piano Concerto No. 22.
The Cleveland Museum of Art showed off a new piece last week, though one that didn’t hang on a wall. The musical work in question — Stacy Garrop’s In a House Besieged — had its world premiere at Gartner Auditorium on Friday, March 25.
On March 12, the audience was invited to sit on the floor in the middle of Wurtzel Theater for a program of compositions and soundscapes created by faculty members of Oberlin Conservatory’s TIMARA (Technology in Music and Related Arts) program. This was the first public presentation of their work since March 2020.
If you were assembling an all-star chamber group, you couldn’t do much better than the Rosamunde String Quartet. The ensemble — a passion project for its members, who play in the string sections of some of the world’s top orchestras most of the year — visited the Cleveland Chamber Music Society on March 15.