ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad
Ad

Re•Views

Oberlin Opera: Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Nov. 10)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

It takes supreme self-confidence to turn a Shakespeare comedy into an opera, and even more daring to follow up someone else’s iconic music with a score of your own. Benjamin Britten is one of the few composers who could succeed on both counts. His version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, composed in 1960 and produced by Oberlin Opera Theater earlier this month, preserves the magic of Shakespeare’s verse with atmospheric writing that stands up well to Mendelssohn’s wonderful incidental music. Directed by Jonathon Field, with Christopher Larkin and the Oberlin Orchestra in the Hall Auditorium pit, the production, of which I saw the fourth and final performance on Sunday afternoon, November 10, boasted a uniformly superb cast of Athenians, Fairies, and Rude Mechanicals. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (Nov. 15)

by

by Colin Roshak
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

This past Friday, in a night of highlights — a young virtuoso soloist, a powerhouse horn player, and an astonishing young ensemble — the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra more than earned their stage time in the legendary Severance Hall. The concert began with a modern selection in Sarah Kirkland Snider’s colorful Something for the Dark, a sort of concerto for orchestra. [Read more…]

Jakub Hrůša guest conducts two November Cleveland Orchestra concerts (Nov. 9 & 14)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

You can usually count on Jakub Hrůša to offer up some Czech music during his guest conducting appearances at Severance Hall. Not this time, but in his recent two weekends of concerts, works by Russian, American, and Austrian composers revealed the conductor’s ability to communicate in multiple musical languages. His readings of Shostakovich and John Adams were as probing and masterful as his takes on Beethoven and Mahler were fresh and surprising, and he brought his colleagues along with him all the way. [Read more…]

Digital Electronic Accordion Symposium: opening concert in Warren (Nov. 8)

by

by Robert Rollin

Accordion music remains alive and well in Northeast Ohio. The first evening concert of the International Digital Electronic Accordion Society (IDEAS) symposium took place Friday evening, November 8 at Warren, Ohio’s Avalon Inn and Resort. If anything, the organizers outdid last year’s opening event. Jazz and cinematic music took center stage. Highlighting the virtuoso performances was the appearance of New Jersey jazz accordion great Eddie Monteiro (left), accompanied by talented drummer Bob Bacha. [Read more…]

Good Company in music by women composers (Nov. 10)

by

by Nicholas Stevens

“Greatness,” as a measure of artistic merit, has a fatal flaw: experts and enthusiasts have to will it into existence. As with a ship’s christening, conferral requires masters of ceremonies, an assenting crowd, a suspension of disbelief, and an intoxicant: in this case, a love of the art form. Bias seeps in all too easily. In the past, some denied that entire groups of artists, such as composers who were women, could ever achieve greatness — a falsehood long since aged to unpalatable bitterness. Good Company: A Vocal Ensemble, joining forces with Amethyst Strings and Windsong, focused on versatility, variety, and vastness of vision in a recent concert of music by women. Together, the groups decanted diverse vintages, finding greatness by the barrel. [Read more…]

Opera Western Reserve: Macbeth at Stambaugh (Nov. 15)

by

by Robert Rollin

On Friday evening, November 15, Opera Western Reserve delivered an excellent performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth at Stambaugh Auditorium. The lead singers were exceptional, as was conductor Susan Davenny Wyner’s splendid orchestra. Barbara Luce’s costumes were lively and added color to the darkly sad subject. Blocking and stage presence were outstanding, but constrained by the presence of a single set that never really changed. This limited the production, despite imaginative lighting effects.

[Read more…]

Sublime Storytelling from the Canton Symphony (Nov. 9)

by

by Tom Wachunas

The November 9 concert by the Canton Symphony Orchestra was a particularly eclectic program of five works exploring the theme of storytelling, beginning with Mozart’s Overture to The Marriage of Figaro. In the genre of opera buffa, there’s hardly a more scintillating curtain raiser than this madcap orchestral frolic. The fast-paced music is replete with crisply punctuated rhythms and many shifting colors, and the ensemble played it impeccably. [Read more…]

Contemporary Youth Orchestra with Pompa-Baldi & a Steinway Spirio (Nov. 16)

by

by Peter Feher

It’s tempting to think that learning only goes one way in a youth orchestra concert. Young musicians see months of rehearsal realized, often on a classic piece, maybe one they’ve never performed before. The Contemporary Youth Orchestra concert on November 16 at Tri-C East’s Mandel Theater satisfied that equation, and then offered something new. Gustav Holst’s titan-sized The Planets occupied the second half of the program, but the real energy and inventiveness came in the first, with the world premiere of a piano concerto that took a far-from-standard approach to the genre. [Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Garibay and tacos at Plymouth (Nov. 9)

by

by Nicholas Stevens

The Cleveland Classical Guitar Society continues to get it right. Where else can a listener applaud local high-school musicians and an award-winning professional soloist in the same evening, cheer a presenter for ensuring that said soloist could enter the country at all, and queue for tacos in the end? This all took place at Plymouth Church on Saturday, November 9. [Read more…]

Road Trip: Cincinnati Symphony premieres Rouse work (Oct. 19)

by

by David Kulma

Although the symphony has always been the bedrock of orchestral music, new additions to the genre are rare on orchestra programs. On Saturday, October 19, I made the 4-hour drive to Southwest Ohio to hear the world premiere of Christopher Rouse’s Symphony No. 6, commissioned as a part of the Cincinnati Symphony’s 125th anniversary season. That Rouse died only a month earlier at the age of 70 gave extra weight to the proceedings. [Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us