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Cooper International Violin Competition: And then there were six (Aug. 17)

After two days of impressive performances by the seventeen participants in the Cooper International Violin Competition, the Jury selected six to advance to Round Two. Yesterday at Oberlin Conservatory’s Warner Concert Hall, the six contestants — each vying for a spot among the final three — presented 45-minute programs with piano. Here are our impressions.

Round Two Session One
by Mike Telin

Bianca Ciubancan (16, Chicago, Ill) began the afternoon session with Jessie Montgomery’s Rhapsody No. 1 for solo violin. Playing with a warm, rich sound, Ciubancan brought a thoughtful, intimate approach to the work, highlighting each of its distinct episodes. [Read on…]

Kenney stands in for Khachatryan with Reinhardt and The Cleveland Orchestra (July 30)

by Jacob Strauss

On July 30, guest conductor Ruth Reinhardt made her Cleveland Orchestra debut with Grażyna Bacewicz’s Overture, Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, and Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 5 at Blossom Music Center. Violinist Alexi Kenney replaced Sergey Khachatryan, who had to withdraw from the performance due to visa complications.

In an interview with ClevelandClassical.com, Reinhardt described Bacewicz as a fantastic, yet underrated composer. “As you listen to her works more, you do hear that she has her own voice.”

[Read on…]

Duo Amal kicks off
PianoDays @CLE (July 24)

by Jacob Strauss

On Sunday, July 24 the piano team of Yaron Kohlberg and Bishara Haroni — Duo Amal — kicked off Piano Cleveland’s PianoDays @CLE in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Kohlberg and Haroni, who first performed together at a peace conference in Oslo in 2011, began their concert with a pillar of the piano four-hand repertoire, Schubert’s Fantasie in f. With Haroni playing the lower part and Kohlberg the upper, they negotiated the keyboard with nimble choreography, highlighting their adroit musicianship and amicable collaborative spirit.

[Read on…]

The Cleveland Orchestra with Tiberghien & Berman (Aug. 6)

by Peter Feher

Some music never goes out of style. The famous first bars of Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto opened the program on August 6 at Blossom Music Center with a flourish. And the brilliance hardly let up after that, with The Cleveland Orchestra sounding superb in a pair of works that put symphonic tradition front and center.

Franz Schmidt’s Symphony No. 4 showcased the ensemble, under guest conductor Jonathan Berman, in the standard conventions of a not-so-standard piece. But at the start of the program, the musicians were equal partners to pianist Cédric Tiberghien, whose playing could be as bold as the full orchestra or as intimate as any instrumental solo. [Read on…]

The Cleveland Orchestra brings the jazzy & symphonic to Blossom (July 16)

by Peter Feher

The crowd at Blossom Music Center on July 16 received two concerts for the price of one. The Cleveland Orchestra went in a jazzy direction with the program’s first half, before turning to the dazzling symphonic repertoire that this ensemble does best.

And those pieces after intermission made for quite the finale. The Orchestra tackled the two most popular pieces from Ottorino Respighi’s Roman trilogy — Fountains of Rome and Pines of Rome — scores that were practically written to end in fireworks.

[Read on…]

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