by Daniel Hathaway
When Debra Nagy made the decision to reinvent her French Baroque ensemble Les Délices as a production company — whose interface with its subscribers would take the form of high-quality videos in the place of live concerts during the pandemic — many of us were curious to see how that would affect one of Cleveland’s cultural treasures.
Their fourth subscription concert, Games and Grounds, which premiered on February 18 and will be available through March 1, finds the members of Les Délices in top form and, if anything, more communicative with their audience than ever before, thanks to the digital magic of Erica Brenner and her audio/visual production team that includes Elaine Martone, Andrew Tripp, and Mathias Reed. [Read more…]
Live music brings risk, and when it comes to live-streamed concerts, that risk extends to technology. A recital on February 15 from the Rocky River Chamber Music Society hit a few snags in that area early on, but that didn’t steal the spotlight from the dazzling performances we heard from Steven Banks and Xak Bjerken in a compelling program of music for saxophone and piano.
The release of the fifth episode of The Cleveland Orchestra’s In Focus video series coincided with the elevation of Vinay Parameswaren from assistant to associate conductor of the ensemble and the extension of his contract. Of course, the concert had been pre-recorded a couple of weeks before it appeared on the Adella platform on January 28, but his leadership of the Orchestra on that occasion completely validated that promotion.
New music concerts can run the risk of sinking under the weight of their own self-importance, especially when “world premieres” are involved. Happily, while No Exit takes itself seriously, it goes about its business with a redemptive playfulness, as demonstrated in several of the entries in the hour-long concert that debuted on the ensemble’s YouTube channel on January 29.
Through a partnership with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society is offering the steamed CMS Front Row National series free of charge.
A varied, compelling, and concise program came to life through excellent performances when percussionists Andrew Pongracz and Mell Csicsila of Duo Anime visited Survival Kit on January 14. The live-streamed concert was presented as part of the Local 4 Music Fund’s Tuning In series.
Art often transcends without trying, remaining rooted in its specific regional, topical, or historical niche yet appealing well beyond. A humble central-German cantor became Bach, an observer of social posturing in a narrow slice of the gentry became Austen, an aerosol virtuoso known to tag lower-Manhattan walls became Basquiat.