From movie soundtracks and Broadway shows, to world renowned concert halls, New York-based violinist Tallie Brunfelt has proven her artistic abilities time and time again. Her newest performance endeavor will be to serve as concertmaster of the Akron Symphony Orchestra, succeeding Alan Bodman, who retired at the end of the 2015-2016 season after 30 years of service to the orchestra. [Read more…]
Akron Symphony: Mendelssohn’s Elijah at E.J. Thomas Hall (May 5)
by Daniel Hathaway
A critical mass of nearly 200 singers joined Christopher Wilkins, the Akron Symphony, and a first-rate quartet of soloists for a resounding performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah on Saturday evening, May 5 in E.J. Thomas Hall. Commissioned for the 1846 Birmingham Festival following the success of his earlier oratorio St. Paul, Mendelssohn’s concert-length work presents the life of the Hebrew prophet in several dramatic scenes.
Neos Dance Meets Symphony in Akron: a conversation with Robert Wesner
by Mike Telin
If you’re looking for a different way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, the Akron Symphony has the answer. On Friday, March 17 at 8:00 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall, Christopher Wilkins will lead the Orchestra in a program titled “Dance Meets Symphony.” The first half of the program will include Irish-themed works by Leroy Anderson as well as Manuel de Falla’s The Three-Cornered Hat.
The second half of the evening will mark the first mainstage collaboration between the ASO and Neos Dance Theatre. [Read more…]
Akron Symphony introduces a vivid Firebird with drum circle
by Daniel Hathaway
Akron Symphony Music Director Christopher Wilkins has continued his resourceful community engagement initiatives by inviting the young members of Akron’s Alchemy, Inc., founded by G. Kwame Scruggs, to undertake a study of the Russian Firebird myth. To begin the second half of the program on Friday evening, February 10 at E.J. Thomas Hall, a dozen Alchemy drummers set up a stirring groove before tag-team narrating an introduction to Stravinsky’s complete Firebird ballet, illustrated by musical examples from the Orchestra. [Read more…]
Akron Symphony: Christopher Wilkins talks about musical myths and legends
by Mike Telin
“The greatest music in The Firebird exists between what we hear in the suites,” Akron Symphony Music Director Christopher Wilkins said of Igor Stravinsky’s complete ballet score. “The horn is Prince Ivan, and during the solo horn passages in the full ballet you can hear him speaking. You can hear his dialogue with the princess and the little interjections from the Firebird who is swirling overhead.”
On Friday, February 10 at 8:00 pm, music inspired by myths and legends will take center stage at E.J. Thomas Hall when Christopher Wilkins leads the Akron Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Stravinsky’s groundbreaking ballet The Firebird.
The program will also include Carl Maria von Weber’s “Overture” to Der Freischütz — based on the German folk legend of the “free shooter” who has a contract with the devil — and the Suite No. 2 from Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloé, which recounts the love between a goat herder and a shepherdess. [Read more…]
Akron Symphony: Beethoven with Benjamin Zander & HaeSun Paik (Jan. 21)
by Daniel Hathaway
Charismatic conductor and motivational speaker Benjamin Zander made the most recent of his periodic appearances with the Akron Symphony Orchestra on January 21 at E.J. Thomas Hall. The all-Beethoven program featured the Ninth Symphony and the Third Piano Concerto with soloist HaeSun Paik.
Save the dates: January events to log in your classical music calendar
by Daniel Hathaway
Former assistant conductor James Gaffigan will return to the podium at Severance Hall from Thursday, January 5 through Saturday, January 7 to lead The Cleveland Orchestra and pianist Kirill Gerstein in Bernard Hermann’s Suite from Psycho, Arnold Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto, the original, jazz band version of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. Performances include Thursday and Saturday evenings, a Friday matinee and a Fridays@7 event.
From January 6-8, the Philadelphia-based vocal ensemble, The Crossing, will give sixeen performances of David Lang’s Lifespan in Gallery 218 — the glass house that rises above the Cleveland Museum of Art’s East Boulevard façade. Surrounding a 4-billion-year-old rock suspended from the ceiling, three vocalists will whistle and breathe, moving the rock like a pendulum, “a poetic form of wind erosion” (read a preview here). Performances are scheduled for Friday at 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 7:45 and 8:30 pm, and on Saturday and Sunday on the hour from noon to 4:00 pm. Weigh in on your experience by sharing your own comments on the ClevelandClassical.com Facebook page. [Read more…]
Akron Symphony invites community friends into its “Home for the Holidays” concert
by Daniel Hathaway
“Like families everywhere, the Akron Symphony celebrates the holiday season with our neighbors and friends,” music director Christopher Wilkins said in a press release about the Orchestra’s“Home for the Holidays” concert on Friday, December 9 at 7:30 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall. And in the case of the ASO, there are a lot of friends to include in the party.
Most American orchestras have established relationships with the wider community they serve, but Wilkins and his predecessors have gone well beyond “outreach” activities to include active participation by community groups in the Orchestra’s activities.
Akron Symphony collaborates with Tuesday Musical and Sō Percussion (October 15)
by Daniel Hathaway
As Akron Symphony music director Christopher Wilkins put it in his speech to the audience in E.J. Thomas Hall on Saturday, October 15, the Orchestra’s program featured “not wasps, not birds, and not planets.” [Read more…]
Sō Percussion to join UA Percussion Ensemble and Akron Symphony in concerts this week
by Mike Telin
It’s all abo
ut Sō Percussion in Akron this week. On Wednesday, October 12 at 7:00 pm in Guzzetta Recital Hall, Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting will team up with the University of Akron’s Percussion Ensemble for a performance of Steve Reich’s groundbreaking composition Drumming as part of Tuesday Musical’s FUZE series.
Then on Saturday, October 15 at 8:00 pm in E.J. Thomas Hall, Sō Percussion will join Christopher Wilkins and the Akron Symphony in Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang’s man made for percussion quartet and orchestra. The evening will also include Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Overture to The Wasps, Tan Dun’s Secret of Wind and Birds, and Gustav Holst’s The Planets. Lang and Wilkins will present the concert’s “Preview from the Podium” at 7:00 pm. [Read more…]