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Akron Symphony’s
Carmina Burana:
a conversation with
David Shimotakahara

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by Mike Telin

Shimotakahara-DavidNext to the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, there is no work for chorus and orchestra more recognizable than Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. The first and last movements, both titled Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi (Fortune, Empress of the World), begin with the popular “O Fortuna,” which has been used a countless number of times in commercials and cinema. But what served as inspiration for David Shimotakahara’s new choreography for Carmina Burana are the arias for solo soprano from the work. “She’s like the axis, she is Fortuna. She is the omniscient center of the universe.”

On Saturday, May 7 at 8:00 pm in E.J. Thomas Hall, Christopher Wilkins will lead the Akron Symphony in Orff’s powerful score, featuring Shimotakahara’s new choreography performed by GroundWorks Dance Theater. The program will also include Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront.   [Read more…]

Clint Needham’s Sounds of Akron to debut at E.J. Thomas this Saturday

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by Mike Telin

Clint Needham-09What does Akron sound like to you? This is the question the Akron Symphony Orchestra and composer Clint Needham asked when they invited Akron area residents to download the iOS or Android apps and upload their recordings to the Sounds of Akron website from late last spring through the fall.

Those became the inspiration for his new collaborative work, Sounds of Akron: City Meets Symphony, which will be premiered by the Akron Symphony at E.J. Thomas Hall under the direction of Christopher Wilkins on April 16 at 8:00 pm. The program will also include Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 featuring soprano Christine Brandes. A pre-concert celebration will begin at 6:00 pm. [Read more…]

Akron Symphony with pianist Richard Kogan (Feb. 6)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Kogan-RichardPianist-psychiatrist Richard Kogan met Akron Symphony music director Christopher Wilkins when both were undergraduates at Harvard. During that time, Kogan played a concerto with the student-run Bach Society Orchestra under Wilkins’s baton. The two met up again on Saturday, February 6 in E.J. Thomas Hall for a performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s second concerto, preceded by an introductory talk by Kogan. [Read more…]

Richard Kogan, pianist & psychiatrist, to be featured with the Akron Symphony

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by Mike Telin

Kogan-RichardOn Saturday, February 6 at 8:00 pm in E. J. Thomas Hall, the Akron Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Christopher Wilkins will challenge the stigma surrounding mental illness during a concert featuring Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.

The soloist in Rachmaninoff’s concerto will be Dr. Richard Kogan, a Harvard Medical School-trained psychiatrist, acclaimed pianist, and artistic director of the Weill Cornell Music and Medicine Program in New York. “For many years I’ve had parallel careers as a concert pianist and as a psychiatrist,” Kogan explained during a telephone conversation.

The two strands of Kogan’s career came together some years ago when he was asked by the American Psychiatric Association to lead a symposium on creative geniuses and mental Illness. [Read more…]

Olivier Brault and the Akron Symphony: a dialogue of traditions (January 16)

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by Christine Jay

BRAULT-OlivierThankfully not all old traditions die hard. On January 16 in the University of Akron’s E. J. Thomas Hall, music director Christopher Wilkins, baroque violinist Olivier Brault, and the Akron Symphony presented a concert entitled “Vivaldi and Bach — The Great Inspiration.” An intermingling of historical and modern performance traditions ensued, with inspiring results. [Read more…]

Akron Symphony:
Keep Calm and Play Bach —
a chat with violinist Olivier Brault

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by Christine Jay

BRAULT-OlivierHow do you follow a celebrated performance of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons? Christopher Wilkins, Music Director of the Akron Symphony, created this fabulous conundrum when he invited Olivier Brault, concertmaster of Apollo’s Fire (and other historically informed ensembles across the globe), to lead Vivaldi’s iconic work in January 2014. Brault excelled and left the audience with a Vivaldian fire in its veins — but what next after Brault’s maiden voyage with the Akron Symphony two years ago?

Keep calm and play Bach.

Both friends and lovers of Bach, Wilkins and Brault devised a program of their favorite repertoire — teeming with the usual hyper-caffeinated Vivaldi and fervent complexity of Bach — for a program entitled “Vivaldi and Bach: Inspired Connection” with the Akron Symphony on January 16, 2016 at 8:00 pm in the E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall. [Read more…]

Musical life after the holidays:
a cornucopia of January concerts

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by Daniel Hathaway

Bronfman-FWM-TCONow that winter has finally arrived and the excitement of the holidays has subsided, it’s tempting to burrow in and hibernate for a few weeks. But there’s plenty to do during January. Let’s have a look at some of what the month has to offer, beginning with orchestra concerts.

Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra are back at work early in the month with a round of all-Beethoven concerts from January 7-9 featuring pianist Yefim Bronfman (left) in the third piano concerto, and Bronfman and the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus in the Choral Fantasy. Soprano Barbara Hannigan will be featured in the U.S. premiere of Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you on January 14 and 15, sharing a program with Dmitri Shostakovich’s fourth symphony. On Saturday the 16th, Robert Porco will lead the annual Martin Luther King Jr Celebration, followed by a Severance Hall Open House on Monday the 17th from 12 Noon to 5 pm. Community ensemble performances will be bracketed by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus (12:30) and Youth Orchestra (4:15). The Cleveland Philharmonic will host its own MLK Observance at Tri-C Metro Auditorium on Sunday, January 17. [Read more…]

Akron Symphony Holiday Pops at E.J. Thomas Hall (December 11)

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by Jane Berkner

ASO-Holiday-PopsA couple of weeks ago, The Price Is Right host and former Clevelander Drew Carey urged long-suffering Cleveland Browns fans to stop attending (expletive) Browns games and instead go see the (expletive) orchestra. This prompted the Akron Symphony Orchestra to champion the comedian’s cause by offering to exchange a Browns ticket stub for a free ticket to their annual holiday pops concert, “Home for the Holidays,” on Friday, December 11 at E.J. Thomas Hall. [Read more…]

Akron Symphony with JoAnn Falletta and clarinetist Todd Levy (November 14)

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by Daniel Hathaway

FallettaIt 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…]

Summit Choral Society at Holy Trinity Lutheran (November 1)

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by Daniel Hathaway

ChorusPerforming to a full house, the Masterworks Chorale of Summit Choral Society began its 26th season under the new leadership of artistic director Marie Bucoy-Calavan with warm, confident performances of Johannes Brahms’s Schicksalslied and Wolfgang Amadè Mozart’s Requiem on Sunday, November 1 in Akron’s Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. [Read more…]

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