by Mike Telin
Ten years ago when ChamberFest Cleveland launched its first festival with the theme “Big Bang,” the organizers envisioned that it would become a world-class festival. Since then, the Festival’s programming has explored themes such as “(IT’S) About Time,” “Crossing Borders,” “Tales and Legends,” “Cycles: Phases!” “In Search of Freedom,” “Under the Influence,” and most recently “Together Again.” And over the past decade ChamberFest Cleveland has indeed become world-class.
In a recent telephone conversation with violinist Diana Cohen and pianist Roman Rabinovich — two of the Festival’s three artistic directors — they said that since 2022 marks their 10th festival, they’ve been talking about X for a while.“We love the idea of a theme and X is the Roman numeral for 10,” Cohen said. “We also liked the idea of the X factor — those things that are hard to define. We wanted to celebrate, while at the same time exploring as many big and exciting projects as we could.”With the overarching theme of X factor, the Festival, which runs from June 16 through July 3, includes mini-themes or threads. One of those is the Debussy thread.
“We’re big Debussy fans, especially of his sonatas,” Rabinovich said. “They were more or less written at the same time near the end of his life, and are so full of imagination and color.”
Performances will include the Violin Sonata (June 18) with Joseph Lin, violin, and Roman Rabinovich, piano, the Sonata for Cello and Piano (June 30) with Jonathan Swensen, cello, and Juho Pohonen piano, and the Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp on (July 1) with Lorna McGhee, flute, Matthew Lippman, viola, and Sivan Magen, harp.
“Debussy’s use of color also inspired us to look at other composers who were inspired by his music, and how they used colors,” Rabinovich said. The French Tradition thread includes Fauré’s Piano Quintet No. 1 (June 24), Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro (June 30), and Franck’s Piano Trio No. 1 (June 30).
Also included in that thread: Luciano Berio’s Folk Songs (July 2) and Kate Soper’s Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say (June 30) with Lucy Fitz Gibbon, soprano, and Lorna McGhee, flute. Rabinovich described the work as “wild and insane, and full of sonic imagination.” Cohen added that it is a piece they’ve wanted to program for years. “Lucy is amazing. She becomes the character in every piece that she does.”
One of the Festival’s anchor pieces is Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s In The Light of Air (July 1). “I don’t think her work has been explored all that much in Cleveland,” Cohen said. “This is a fascinatinating, meditative piece that we’re doing at The Madison, which is a cool warehouse. It’s all washed in white with high ceilings. It feels like a church except that it’s an old factory. The light installation should be beautiful and should help create the feeling of being still for 40 minutes.”
The George Walker thread will feature the Cello Sonata (June 16) with Sterling Elliott, cello, and Evren Ozel, piano, the Molto Adagio from String Quartet No. 1 “Lyric” (June 17) with Diana Cohen and Sarah Kapustin, violins, Teng Li, viola, and Brook Speltz, cello, and Music for Three for Piano Trio (June 23) with Alexi Kenney, violin, Gabriel Martins, cello, and Andrius Žlabys, piano.
“This is Walker’s centennial and to honor his music, we’ve selected pieces from throughout his very long and productive life,” said Rabinovich, who will perform the composer’s Piano Sonata No. 5 on June 24. The pianist also has a personal connection to the sonata — his teacher Seymour Lipkin and Walker were classmates at the Curtis Institute.
“I first heard Walker’s music played by my teacher in his living room which was a very powerful experience,” Rabinovich recalled. “He was 89 at the time, and was learning the Fifth Sonata for the first time.”
When it came to celebrating ChamberFest’s 10th season, the artistic directors agreed that commissioning a piece in honor of the occasion was an obvious choice. On June 25 clarinetist Franklin Cohen will join his violinist-daughter Diana, his percussionist-son Alexander, and his pianist-son-in-law Roman Rabinovich for the premiere of Yevgeniy Sharlat’s Dumka-22.
“We both went to Curtis, although he’s older and we didn’t overlap,” Rabinovich said. “I’ve been an admirer of his music for some time. We just got the score, and you can see that he uses the instruments, especially the percussion, in a special way. So there will be a lot of surprises for the audience.”
From the beginning, the Festival has created programs and sought out performers that demonstrate how expansive the genre of chamber music is. And this season is no exception. On June 17 the vocal quartet Kings Return will make their ChamberFest debut in a program titled “Spirited Away.” Their playlist includes Gregorian chant, spirituals, gospel, and some Nina Simone.
“We’re thrilled that they’re joining us,” Cohen said. “They are an amazing group that we got to know last year at La Jolla. They say they are a group of brothers who sing in stairwells. They do all kinds of arrangements from classical to pop to gospel. They’re a lot of fun.”
Winding down our conversation, we turned to the very first work that will be performed on the 10th season. The Mozart/Grieg Sonata No. 16 in C will feature the duo piano team of Rabinovich and Evren Ozel. “I am excited to hear this sonata which is sort of an homage to our very first season when we opened with a Mozart two-piano sonata,” Cohen said.
Rabinovich noted that Grieg wrote the second piano part as a pedagogical tool for his students. “It’s an interesting intersection — a composer one hundred years later looks back at another great composer. I find it very fascinating.”
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Published on ClevelandClassical.com June 1, 2022.
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