by J.D. Goddard
On Sunday, June 19, I put on my hiking boots, picked up my backpack, filled my canteen, loaded up on beef jerky, and journeyed out into the wilds of Cuyahoga Valley National Park to hear the Cuyahoga Valley Chamber Players present a program of works by Jacob, Quantz, Dvořák, Roussel, Mozart, and Piazzola in the Happy Days Lodge. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
Last Friday night, April 8, the Earth and Air String Orchestra presented Losing Innocence: English Music at the Turn of the 20th Century in Tucker Hall of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights. It was the perfect setting for the interesting, well-organized, and beautiful program, and the 18-member string ensemble performed with exceptional skill. [Read more…]
by Carlyn Kessler
“I thought the name ‘Down Home Classical’ fit perfectly because chamber music originally started in the home,” composer Margaret Brouwer explained in a telephone conversation. “Back before television, families would get together and play chamber music in the home, and all of this music is very much that kind of chamber music. And the place where we’re performing, Dunham Tavern, is like a great big living room. The audience will be sitting pretty close to the musicians, which will be almost like a home environment.”
On Thursday, February 25 at 7:30 pm at Cleveland’s Dunham Tavern Museum, the Blue Streak Ensemble (BSE), directed by award-winning composer Margaret Brouwer, will present “Down Home Classical,” an evening of American porch music. “It’s very American music,” said Brouwer. “There are a lot of beautiful melodies, wonderful sparkling sounds, and fun, catchy rhythms.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
A great thing about chamber music is that it can be performed in any space that can accommodate a small number of musicians while leaving room to comfortably seat an audience. Since 2005, Heights Arts’ Close Encounters Chamber Music Series has found its niche in Cleveland’s vibrant chamber music scene by presenting concerts in intriguing and inviting spaces around the city. The series, coordinated by artistic director Isabel Trautwein, presented its first concert of the season on Sunday afternoon, November 22 at Dunham Tavern Museum in Midtown. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
It was a fine evening for wind players at the Akron Symphony concert on Saturday, November 14 at E.J. Thomas Hall. Their distinguished playing lent many-hued colors to Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 in D, as well as to the second suite from Albert Roussel’s ballet Bacchus and Ariadne. And the program, under the direction of guest conductor JoAnn Falletta, featured the artistry of guest soloist Todd Levy in Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto. [Read more…]