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Search Results for: Stephanie Manning

ChamberFest Cleveland: transporting listeners into “Other Worlds” (June 22)

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by Stephanie Manning

Hearing the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” was not on my ChamberFest Cleveland bingo card. But Brandon Ridenour had other ideas.

“Antonio Vivaldi was the Paul McCartney of his time,” the trumpet player told the audience at the festival’s June 22 concert. Accompanied by string quartet, Ridenour brought his arrangements of both the Beatles and the Baroque to the program — titled “In Other Worlds” — and made a pretty strong case for the connection between 18th-century opera and 1960s pop.

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Ohio Light Opera: everything free and easy at Me And My Girl (June 20)

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by Stephanie Manning

Not only is it a challenge to walk out of Me and My Girl without the music stuck in your head, it’s also a challenge to pick which of the many songs you might be humming.

The charming, feel-good 1937 musical — with music by Noel Gay and book/lyrics by Douglas Furger & L. Arthur Rose — may not be much of a household name these days. But after its original success in London’s West End, a revised book by Stephen Frey and Mike Ockrent in the 1980s made the show a huge hit across the pond on Broadway. And the Ohio Light Opera’s dazzling premiere makes it easy to see why.

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ENCORE: Voice of the Dunkleosteus (June 15)

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by Stephanie Manning

Perhaps nothing exemplifies a festival themed around “Planet Earth” quite like a concert performed underneath a prehistoric fish. Specifically, the 359-million-year-old Dunkleosteus terrelli, known as “ancient Ohio’s apex predator.” But you can just call him Dunk.

The ENCORE Music & Ideas Festival drew a packed crowd at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History on June 15, and audience members were in for a treat at this concert in the visitor hall. The skeleton of Dunk may have been the closest to the action, but the bright and airy space was filled with other neat creatures for attendees to peruse. (On the left was a reconstruction of Lucy, the most famous human ancestor fossil, and to the right were the bones of Happy, a “reptile hipped” dinosaur.)

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ChamberFest: small tweaks, big results for “Mystical Reveries” (June 14)

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by Stephanie Manning

Sprinkling a few changes into a chamber concert program can add the perfect amount of variety to an otherwise straightforward evening. Such was the case at ChamberFest Cleveland on June 14 with “Mystical Reveries.” The choice of swapping keyboard for harp in works by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber and C.P.E. Bach, as well as opting for the original horn/piano pairing in the Robert Schumann, injected just enough excitement into this pleasant evening of music.

The Friday night program at Harkness Chapel saved the most traditional selection for last: Johannes Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 2 in C. Pianist Roman Rabinovich, violinist Joseph Lin, and cellist Oliver Herbert gave a spirited performance, taking advantage of the Chapel’s tastefully dry acoustic to accentuate moments of uber-quiet playing.

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Peter Takács—A Half Century Celebrated

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by Stephanie Manning
This article was originally published on the Oberlin Conservatory website.

Peter Takács may be retiring from Oberlin, but that doesn’t mean he’ll stop coming to campus anytime soon.

“They can’t get rid of me quite so easily,” the piano professor says, with a knowing smile. After all, he and his wife live in town, and there are still performances and recording sessions to look forward to.

Still, this spring marks the official conclusion of Takács’ tenure, after an incredible 48 years of teaching. Many of his former students from around the world are set to convene— either live or via video—for a celebratory concert in Warner Concert Hall on May 12. A reception and Piano Play-a-thon will round out the festivities that day.

Born in Bucharest, Romania, Takács studied piano in France and the United States before accepting his teaching job at Oberlin in 1976. Described by The New York Times as “a marvelous pianist,” he has performed and given master classes around the world.

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Keeping Creation Collaborative with Silkroad

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by Stephanie Manning

Ask Haruka Fujii what instrument she plays, and she won’t be able to tell you exactly.

“I play anything that makes noise,” the percussionist says. “Anything that I can make music with—including pure water, to ceramic rice bowls, to anything.”

A specialist in contemporary music, Fujii says she focuses on working with living composers to “innovate and invent the boundary of what the percussionist can do.” Since 2010, she’s been doing just that as a member of the Silkroad Ensemble, a musical collective dedicated to cross-cultural collaboration.

On April 26, she’ll be coming to Oberlin for the first time, as part of the group performing Silkroad’s program “Uplifted Voices.” Tickets are available online.

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Josefina Maldonado returns to Cleveland Orchestra for Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater

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by Mike Telin

Following Josefina Maldonado’s Cleveland Orchestra debut in November 2022 in John Adams’ El Niño, Stephanie Manning wrote for ClevelandClassical.com that the mezzo-soprano “more than held her own amid such a strong cast. Her round and resonant voice projected well in all registers, consistently controlled…”

On Thursday, March 21 at 7:30 pm, Maldonado will return to Severance Music Center for performances of Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater. Under the direction of Dalia Stasevska, the program also includes Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Cantus Arcticus and Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2, and will be repeated on Friday, March 22 at 7:30 and Saturday, March 23 at 8:00. Tickets are available online.

“The Cleveland Orchestra is world-class, and I look forward to coming back and working with Dalia Stasevska. She’s an excellent conductor,” Josefina Maldonado said during a telephone conversation.

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Oberlin Opera Theater: The Dark Side of Orpheus

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by Stephanie Manning

Reposted courtesy of Oberlin College and Conservatory

The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice has appeared in art for centuries, in everything from books, to paintings, to music. So why do we keep telling it? That question weighed on Stephanie Havey’s mind as the stage director began planning for Oberlin Opera Theater’s production of L’Orfeo.

“There’s something very relatable in that doubt that Orpheus has,” Havey says about the bard’s quest to rescue his wife from the underworld. “That fear of losing his loved one, and also doubting himself—I think these themes are all very universal.”

Written at the turn of the 17th century, Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo is one of the earliest examples of opera as an art form. But it’s not the only operatic take on Orpheus. Havey, Oberlin’s visiting assistant professor of opera theater for 2023-24, has directed the versions by Gluck and Offenbach at other points in her career. But she says Monteverdi’s has a distinct perspective on the dark side to Orpheus’ musical power.

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Oberlin Presents Grammy-Winning Imani Winds in Concert

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by Stephanie Manning

Reposted courtesy of Oberlin College and Conservatory

When flutist Brandon Patrick George ’08 attended Imani Winds’ Artist Recital Series performance back in 2007, he never imagined that he would one day sit in the flute chair. “Being able to perform with my colleagues is such an honor,” he says about returning to Oberlin with the pioneering wind quintet on March 7. The ensemble last appeared in Warner Concert Hall in 2021 when they gave a short performance and enjoyed a wonderful dialogue with students during a generous Q&A.

The ensemble—who recently won their first Grammy for their album Passion for Bach and Coltrane—will present a contemporary program that George says is connected to two key parts of Imani Winds’ mission: “to highlight the shared humanity between all individuals from all walks of life, and to advocate for change.”

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Oberlin’s Artist Recital Series Sets the Stage for a Gospel Experience

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by Stephanie Manning
Reposted courtesy of Oberlin College and Conservatory

Trey McLaughlin & The Sounds of Zamar blur the boundaries of genre with contemporary gospel arrangements. Their latest tour, “The Zamar Experience,” arrives in Oberlin February 10 for a community workshop and concert on the Artist Recital Series in Finney Chapel.

For Trey McLaughlin, each and every rehearsal is the creation of something special.

“It’s where  the magic first happens, you know,” says the vocalist and director. “It’s that moment where you’re starting a new piece and you’re starting to hear what it could be.”

For McLaughlin, who has been singing since age four, his love for rehearsing started early. “I would line up my mom’s perfume bottles on her dresser, or my toys, or anything that would stand, and I would have choir rehearsal,” he says. A CD recording would serve as the finished product. But that was almost an afterthought—his favorite part was the teaching.

The singer and arranger is leading plenty of rehearsals these days thanks in part to his touring group, Trey McLaughlin & The Sounds of Zamar. The contemporary gospel choir will take their latest show around the U.S. and Canada this February, stopping in Oberlin for the first time. Their February 10 performance in Finney Chapel is part of the 2023-24 Artist Recital Series. [Read more…]

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