by Daniel Hathaway
After the novel coronavirus brought live concerts to a standstill in March, Apollo’s Fire was among the first of Cleveland’s performing organizations to formulate a clear plan for 2020-2021. Cleveland’s Baroque orchestra proposed a hybrid subscription season that would permit in-person audiences at its various venues — at 15% of capacity — but alternatively, promised professionally-produced videos for viewing by subscribers about a week after the live performances.
The first such video, capturing the October 20 performance of Resilience at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights, delivered handsomely on that promise. Erica Brenner’s sensitive videography and audio mixing preserved brilliant performances of music that illuminated two troubled periods in history: the plague of London in 1665, and the outbreaks of cholera and dysentery that dampened but failed to defeat the human spirit at the end of the American Civil War two centuries later. [Read more…]
It’s one thing to create a varied setlist exploring one different genre after another, and quite another to pull it off as convincingly as the Gruca White Ensemble does on their latest CD, 
With the onslaught of streamed concerts, whether live or pre-recorded, ensembles are now faced with the task of deciding how to present themselves on-screen to an at-home audience.
Bokyung Byun is the kind of performer who exudes a cool and collected sense of control and comfort with her instrument. During her Cleveland Classical Guitar Society debut on October 17 — a pre-recorded recital from her home in Los Angeles — she showed off a thorough expressivity and impressive technical agility, seemingly without breaking a sweat.
Beginning a season-long partnership, No Exit New Music Ensemble presented Boston-based duo Transient Canvas in a remote, streamed concert on Saturday, October 10. The program, “Crossroads,” examined intersections between electronic and acoustic music, and combined live emceeing with pre-recorded performances of works written for the duo.
Christa Rakich, currently Visiting Professor of Organ at Oberlin Conservatory, played an intriguing and unusual program on Sunday afternoon at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Akron. The concert was presented in a “hybrid” format for an in-person as well as an at-home audience.