Aeolus Quartet Archives - Cleveland Classical

Groundworks Dance Theater to present premiere of House of Sparrows with the Aeolus Quartet at the Breen

March 17, 2015 by Daniel Hathaway

by Mike Telin

On Friday, March 20 and Saturday, March 21at 7:30 pm, GroundWorks DanceTheater will bring its Spring concert series to the Breen Center for the Performing Arts at St. Ignatius High School. The performances will include the world premiere of The Rub, choreographed by artist-in-residence Robert Moses, and the reprise of Current Frame, choreographed by artistic associate Amy Miller (in collaboration with Kathryn Wells Taylor, Gary Lenington, Felise Bagley and Damien Highfield). The evening will also include the world premiere of House of Sparrows, choreographed by Groundworks executive artistic director David Shimotakahara in collaboration with New York-based Aeolus Quartet, and Austin-based composer Steven Snowden.

House of Sparrows is set in scenes inspired by letters and photographs illustrating the upheaval of domestic life during the Civil War through individual experiences. “The development of the project was a collaborative process,” Aeolus Quartet violinist Rachel Shapiro said during a telephone conversation. [Read more…]

Cavani Quartet celebrates 30th Anniversary (the last in a series of articles)

March 3, 2015 by Daniel Hathaway

by Carlyn Kessler and Mike Telin

The Cavani’s Intensive Quartet Seminar is renowned for preparing well-rounded musicians. The program allows students to constructively track their progress alongside their peers, who, just like faculty members, are valuable resources. The IQS is an incubator for creative ideas, and a “safe place” for improvement, empathy and inspiration. We spoke to current IQS students and alums and asked them about the program’s impact on their education and careers.

“Working with the Cavani Quartet as part of the Intensive Quartet Seminar and Apprentice Quartet Program completely transformed how I thought about music and its relationship to the world,” violist Elizabeth Oaks said in a recent e-mail. “I learned that I could strive to perform the repertoire I loved at the highest possible level while working to bring music to a diverse range of audiences in a creative way.” [Read more…]

Cleveland Repertory Orchestra’s season opener contemplates circles of life (Nov. 2)

by Stephanie Manning

“This moment is full of wonders.” Composer Anna Clyne meditated on those words — written by Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh — as she wrote her orchestral work This Moment. That theme, of learning to cherish life more by reflecting on death, underscored most of the music chosen for the Cleveland Repertory Orchestra’s program on November 2.

The Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Christian Church hosted the season-opening concert, titled “Reflection and Revelations.” The venue’s dry acoustic helped the textures remain clear in Clyne’s piece, a somber and meditative seven minutes. [Read on…]

Pianist Garrick Ohlsson, conductor Daniel Reith lead Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven concert (Nov. 9)

by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A relaxed understanding born of a long career helped pianist Garrick Ohlsson bring easy grace and Proto-Romantic sensibility to Beethoven’s Second and Fourth Piano Concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra.

The program on Saturday at Severance Music Center featured early and middle works, the second set of concerts in the Orchestra’s cycle of Beethoven piano concertos.

Despite its number, the Second Concerto is actually the composer’s first, begun in 1790. Ohlsson treated this early Beethoven work expressively, with sinuous rubato, keeping his rhythms precise, his touch light, and his rhetoric clear. Nothing, not even Beethoven’s many technical snares, seemed to faze him.

[Read on…]

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