by David Kulma
Ohio Light Opera opened its 41st summer season at the College of Wooster’s Freedlander Theatre with the well-loved — and now 70-year-old — Rodgers & Hammerstein musical South Pacific, which premiered on Broadway in April of 1949. Filled with some of their best songs — the enduring and endearing “Some Enchanted Evening” is the most famous — the musical still packs a powerful and meaningful punch in this traditional production directed by Jacob Allen. [Read more…]
by Rory O’Donoghue
ChamberFest Cleveland descended from the heavens with “Under the Influence,” the inaugural concert of its eighth season on June 13 in CIM’s Mixon Hall. Exquisite interpretation, unparalleled finesse, and delightful music-making tied the evening’s selections together in performances of simply the highest caliber. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Mozart the influencer was documented in music for winds by Beethoven and Poulenc for ChamberFest Cleveland’s fifth program on Thursday, June 20 in CIM’s Mixon Hall, while the notion of “Mozart the Giant” was affirmed by the composer’s own String Quintet in D. The first part of the evening was distinguished by elegant wind playing every bit as refined as what you would expect from a world-class string quartet, yet fully capable of incisive punctuation when the music called for emphatic gestures.
by Nicholas Stevens
On a recent Sunday afternoon in Cleveland State Univesity’s Waetjen Auditorium, extraordinary sights and sounds filled the room without overwhelming it. For those accustomed to hearing symphony orchestras in concert, forty-seven will not sound like an especially high number of musicians to see onstage — until it becomes clear that the group consists exclusively of low brass players. The ten tubists and thirty-seven trombonists of the Cleveland Trombone Seminar brought finesse and energy to a varied program, their instruments’ reputations for volume and slowness cast aside at the auditorium’s threshold. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
June 8 was the busiest day for the Re:Sound Festival, with three concerts around the city. I heard the first two, beginning in the afternoon at Praxis Fiber Workshop, where the duo Dykes & Young set a high bar for the acts that would follow over the course of the day. Bassist Laura Dykes and violinist Jeffrey Young performed three original works that had their genesis in joint improvisation, but which have solidified over the years into fixed structures. In particular, the second of the three was riveting. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
“We like to call this program The 1.8%,” declared Neave Trio violinist Anna Williams to a bustling room of listeners at Collinwood’s Praxis Fiber Workshop last week. That figure comes from a survey conducted by staff of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, who found that only 1.8% of all music programmed by America’s major orchestras in a recent season was by female composers. The trio aims to showcase what so many audiences have been missing. Like others who have mined this vein, the Neave has struck gold. [Read more…]
by Rory O’Donoghue
Czech guitarist Petra Poláčková returned to the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival with a performance that gained in confidence and character as it went along on Sunday, June 9 in CIM’s Mixon Hall. She began with several works by the wildly successful lutenist Sylvius Leopold Weiss, which she performed on her beautiful nine-string Romantic guitar crafted by Jan Tulacek. Visually striking with its additional strings, the instrument had a pure, sweet sound of remarkable depth. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Pivotal moments in the lives of composers linked works by Louise Farrenc, Paul Hindemith, and Johannes Brahms for ChamberFest Cleveland’s third concert on Saturday, June 15 in CIM’s Mixon Hall. But that program was prefaced by Adam Golka’s new arrangement of Debussy’s La mer for two pianos, an hors d’oeuvre that could easily have been served up as a main course. [Read more…]
by Rory O’Donoghue
“We look forward to smashing the heteropatriarchy with you,” cellist Benjamin Swartz said before performing a program of Sofia Gubaidulina, Tamar Diesendruck, and Kaija Saariaho with Boston-based string trio Sound Energy. The group closed the second concert of this year’s Re:Sound New and Experimental Music Festival on Friday June 7 at The Magalen, which featured a sensational first half by the Berrow Duo and made a strong case for the many daring voices of 21st century composers.
by Rory O’Donoghue
Guitarist Colin Davin explored the relationship between old and new on his opening recital of the 19th Annual Cleveland International Guitar Festival on June 6, pairing Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint with David Crowell’s Point Cloud (a Cleveland premiere) and two Bach transcriptions. The two-time prizewinner of the Guitar Foundation of America International Competition, who currently teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music, presented an evening of utmost musicianship at Mixon Hall.