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Stephanie Lamprea’s Unaccompanied: Tiny Works for Quarantine, Vols. I & II

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by Nicholas Stevens

“I am sitting in a room,” intones the composer Alvin Lucier, announcing the title of the composition he is recording before clarifying: “…different from the one you are sitting in now.” As stay-at-home orders arose in March 2020, music-lovers on social media noted that Lucier’s half century-old audio piece could serve as an unlikely quarantine anthem. 

Enter the soprano Stephanie Lamprea, last heard in Cleveland during the 2019 Re:Sound Festival, making some of the lockdown era’s most vivid new music through an approach that inverts everything that defines Lucier’s piece — except, of course, for the isolation.

[Read more…]

CD Review —
A Tribute to Yuko Hayashi: Christa Rakich, organ

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by Daniel Hathaway

A new CD by Christa Rakich, who is currently Visiting Professor of Organ at the Oberlin Conservatory, gives a nod in two directions. As its title announces, it’s an homage to her former teacher and colleague, the late Yuko Hayashi, longtime professor at the New England Conservatory and curator of Boston’s Old West Church Organ Series. It’s also the first recording to be made of Richards, Fowkes & Co.’s Opus 16 instrument, built in 2008 for Goodson Chapel of the Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. [Read more…]

CD Review — Patchwork

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by Mike Telin 

On their recent, self-titled debut album, the Cleveland-based duo Patchwork — Noa Even and Stephen Klunk — present five commissioned works that draw on free jazz, metal, progressive rock, and the avant-garde. Released on New Focus Records, the album takes you to a sonic world never dreamed possible from a saxophone and drum set duo. As we have come to expect from Even and Klunk, the five works are an exploration of extended techniques. More importantly, their performances are bewitching — ensemble playing at its best.

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CD Review: Wet Ink — Glossolalia/Lines on Black 

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By Tyler Smith
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

Hailed by the New York Times as “The Best Classical Music Ensemble of 2018,” Wet Ink Ensemble has lived up to this acclaim once again with their recent release Glossolalia/Lines on Black. The album takes its name from the two extended works by Wet Ink members Alex Mincek (saxophone) and Sam Pluta (electronics). The remainder of the septet includes Eric Wubbels (piano), Erin Lesser (flutes), Ian Antonio (percussion), Josh Modney (violin), and Kate Soper (voice). [Read more…]

CD Review — Martina Filjak: Light and Darkness

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by Daniel Hathaway

Croatian-born pianist Martina Filjak, now living in Berlin, has released her latest album, Light and Darkness, featuring music by Franz Liszt — plus an epilogue by Arvo Pärt. The disc confirms once again all the special technical and interpretive qualities that won her the gold medal at the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 2009. [Read more…]

CD Review — The Cleveland Orchestra: A New Century, Vol. 2

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by Jarrett Hoffman

From Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra comes A New Century, a three-disc, live album that inaugurates the ensemble’s new record label. Each disc matches a newer work with an older one, and in Volume Two, we find another fascinating pairing: one piece written after a trip to Italy, the other born out of a horror story.

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CD Review — Solomiya Ivakhiv & Antonio Pompa-Baldi: Mendelssohn early violin concertos

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by Hannah Schoepe

While Felix Mendelssohn’s Concerto in e is played by every violinist at a certain stage in their development, not many listeners are aware of the first violin concerto Mendelssohn composed — in d minor.

His double concerto for violin and piano might be even lesser known. Ukrainian violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv has dedicated her new album Mendelssohn, released by Brilliant Classics, to rediscovering these lost gems. By her side is Italian-born pianist and Cleveland Institute of Music faculty member Antonio Pompa-Baldi. Theodore Kuchar conducts the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra.

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CD Review — Davin-Levin Duo: Banter

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Aware of the limited repertoire that exists for their combination of instruments, guitarist Colin Davin and harpist Emily Levin got creative. The debut album from the Davin-Levin Duo, Banter, released on April 7 on Iris Records, includes their own arrangements of music by Ravel, de Falla, and Glass, as well as commissioned works by Will Stackpole and Dylan Mattingly.

[Read more…]

CD Review — The Cleveland Orchestra: A New Century, Vol. 1

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by Jarrett Hoffman

The Cleveland Orchestra is launching its own record label with a major release. Having turned 100 during the 2018-19 season, the ensemble looks ahead with A New Century. The six works across three discs were recorded in concert in Severance Hall under the baton of Music Director Franz Welser-Möst from 2017 to 2019.

[Read more…]

Oberlin Opera moves to live stream for second and final Così fan tutte (Mar. 13)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The portents weren’t good for the week of March 8: first the disorienting switch to Daylight time was to click in on Sunday, then a full moon would rise on Tuesday, then the 13th of the month was scheduled to fall on Friday. Midweek, the spread of COVID-19 added a spiraling series of postponements, cancellations, and shut-downs to an already unlucky period. Like other educational institutions, Oberlin College and Conservatory found themselves making decisions about how to proceed, only to change plans several times. [Read more…]

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