by Timothy Robson
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.
by Peter Feher
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.
Concerts cancelled in 2020 may have put a brief gap in Ling’s record with the Orchestra (a program every season since 1984-1985), but the ensemble’s former resident conductor more than made up for it Sunday with a performance both commanding and personal. [Read more…]
by Peter Feher
Midway through his performance on July 21 at Ludwig Recital Hall — part of this year’s Kent Blossom Music Festival — flutist Demarre McGill invited the audience into an understanding of his program with an abstract but heartfelt speech. It was all preface to the next piece on the program, an arrangement of three short songs by William Grant Still.
McGill described the “unlikely duo” of emotions coursing through Still’s music, a balance between “mystery and hopefulness” or “nostalgia and energy” — or simply and musically put, major and minor. The flutist kept the discussion artistic, even suggesting that all this talk doesn’t really have any bearing on the music itself. [Read more…]
by Peter Feher
From the podium, Herbert Blomstedt is always proving that there are new insights to be found in even the most well-trod pieces.
The 94-year-old Swedish American conductor, whose big American post was with the San Francisco Symphony several decades ago, returned to Blossom Music Center on Sunday, August 1, with the kind of austere program only he can pull off.
by Peter Feher
The stage was packed at Blossom Music Center on Sunday, July 18. The pops program of American songbook standards — part Broadway, part Hollywood, and part jazz — called for a full orchestra, plus a rhythm section up front and a row of saxophone players off to the side. This is music that can work with just piano and singer, but after months of pandemic-adapted performances, it was great to see a full-scale production.
by Cait Winston
In his remarks before the July 28 Kent Blossom Music Festival concert, featuring members of The Cleveland Orchestra, Kent State University president Todd Diacon noted that while the past year has not been easy, “It has been made easier by the arts.” This statement was ratified by the performances that followed, where the freedom and passion in the musicians’ playing created a restorative sense of joy and optimism.
by Timothy Robson
Chanticleer, the legendary all-male vocal ensemble, appeared on Tuesday Musical’s series at E.J. Thomas Hall on July 27. Founded in 1978, the ensemble presented one of their trademark eclectic programs, in which a Renaissance motet by William Byrd could bump up against Burton Lane’s pop song On a Clear Day, or a commissioned work might transition to a gospel song. Part of their first post-pandemic tour, this was their first performance in Northeast Ohio under new music director Tim Keeler, who had previously sung countertenor in the group.
by Peter Feher
The Ohio Light Opera made a smart move adding The Fantasticks to its repertory this season. The company that puts operetta first but always has room for a musical or two couldn’t have chosen a better classic for this strange summer back from the pandemic. This is a show that needs only a barebones setup, and OLO’s production (which ran from July 14–24, outdoors at Wayne Center for the Arts in Wooster) was charmingly stripped down.
by Timothy Robson
Venezuelan-born conductor Rafael Payare made his debut with The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center on Sunday, July 25. Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 featured Stefan Jackiw as soloist, and the program concluded with Antonín Dvořák’s evergreen “New World” Symphony. Payare is the music director of the San Diego Symphony and music director-designate of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.
by Daniel Hathaway
What was that strange din coming over the live feed from Ludwig Recital Hall on Friday evening, July 23, as the Miami String Quartet filed onstage to play the third faculty recital of the Kent Blossom Music Festival? Accustomed as we were during the pandemic ban on live audiences to hearing the sound of no hands clapping, it was both startling and thrilling to witness a large crowd putting their hands together to welcome one of the Festival’s perennial favorites back for an in-person performance. [Read more…]