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Piano Cleveland Live: piano, violin, and an Ohio City pub (Feb. 5)

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by Stephanie Manning

“How do we bring in people who are interested in piano music, but might be intimidated by their first experience being in a concert hall?”

That’s the question Marissa Moore said she and the Piano Cleveland team were considering when they started a series of free performances held in local bars.

As the host of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, Piano Cleveland puts on plenty of events in Severance Music Center — “which is the most beautiful but probably the most intimidating space you can imagine,” said Moore, the organization’s executive director. “We thought it was really important to pair that with places that have more accessibility.”

Since 2022, these small, relaxed concerts in neighborhood pubs have been going strong, and are now part of the series “Piano Cleveland Live.” Last week’s event on Wednesday, February 5 brought folks to Forest City Brewery to sip drinks, eat food, and listen to the music-making of pianist Arseniy Gusev and violinist Shannon Lee. [Read more…]

CD Single: Sachs & Kondonassis in Kernis’ Elegy…for those we lost (Azica)

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by Daniel Hathaway

When British musicians have needed a piece of memorial music, their choice since the turn of the 20th century has often been the “Nimrod” movement from Edward Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme, or Henry Walford Davies’ A Solemn Melody. 

Since 1935 when it was born as the second movement of his Op. 11 String Quartet, Americans have frequently turned to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, a piece the composer later texted with the words of the Agnus Dei and re-published for unaccompanied chorus.

A more recent and very personal entry into the category of musical laments is Aaron Jay Kernis’s Elegy…for those we lost, originally a piano piece composed after the composer had contracted and recovered from COVID-19.

He has written, “I strived to create music to counterpoint the terrible pandemic and honor the dead — to try to give some measure of solace to families by sharing a personal expression of grief.” [Read more…]

CD Review—
The Dover Quartet
plays Schumann 

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Robert Schumann wrote his three string quartets in a span of less than two months during the summer of 1842. We think of such intensely productive times as manic, especially for Schumann, who is now thought to have suffered from bipolar disorder. But in some ways, the music of Op. 41 belies that.

In the Dover Quartet’s collection of all three works — released in fall 2019 on Azica Records and recently nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance — the ensemble captures not just remarkable bursts of energy, but more often patient and poised writing from a mature Schumann.

[Read more…]

CD Review—Dance, Jason Vieaux and the Escher Quartet

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by Mike Telin

There are few recordings that provide as much listening pleasure as guitarist Jason Vieaux’s and the Escher Quartet’s Dance. Released by Azica Records, the album is an hour-long feast for the ears that is full of pristine beauty and energetic swagger.

[Read more…]

Kondonassis & Azica Records are among  2020 Grammy Award Nominees  

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by Mike Telin

Yesterday the Recording Academy announced that Cleveland-based Azica Records’ release of Jennifer Higdon’s Harp Concerto performed by Yolanda Kondonassis and the Rochester Philharmonic, conducted by Ward Stare, had received a Grammy nomination in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category. The recording on the album American Rapture was produced and mixed by Alan Bise, and engineered by Bruce Egre. Commissioned by Kondonassis, Higdon’s concerto was also nominated for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

“This nomination is always such a huge honor with all the amazing talent out there. To be in this small group is humbling and I’m thrilled beyond belief,” Kondonassis said in an email. “Enormous thanks go to Jennifer Higdon, Ward Stare, The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Alan Bise, Bruce Egre, and Azica Records. These projects are never easy, but what an amazing team to make it all happen!” [Read more…]

Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival celebrates its 17th season June 9-11

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by Mike Telin

CICGF-ArtistsBeginning on Friday, June 9 and continuing through Sunday, June 11, Guitars International will present the seventeenth annual Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

“I cannot believe it’s the 17th season,” CICGF founder and artistic director Armin Kelly said during a recent telephone conversation. “Over the years I’ve learned a lot about what to do and what not to do, but it was a steep learning curve.”

Kelly noted that the Festival has grown beyond what he had ever imagined possible. “I was interested in figuring out how to fill a void in the presentation of the classical guitar in Cleveland,” Kelly said. “There were guitar programs at CIM, Oberlin, the University of Akron, and other schools in the area, but there really wasn’t an established concert presenter for the instrument.” [Read more…]

Behind the scenes at the Cleveland International Piano Competition

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by Mike Telin

CIPCBackstage2Long before the pianists arrive and each session begins, a whole group of people arrive to begin work backstage at Gartner Auditorium — making sure that microphones and cameras are properly placed and focused, that the audio and video feeds are working, that pianos are tuned, that radio broadcasts are announced, and that ushers are ready to take tickets, seat the audience, and deal with latecomers.

When I arrived in the lobby one hour prior to the 7:00 start time for the chamber music segment of the finals on Tuesday, the ushers were busy preparing to receive the audience, and volunteers were stocking the competition gift shop with program books, CDs and other CIPC items.

When audio engineer Alan Bise meets me and takes me backstage, the piano technician is busy tuning the Hamburg Steinway that both Georgy Tchaidze and Nikita Mndoyants had chosen for their performances with the Escher String Quartet. [Read more…]

Northeast Ohio Grammy Nominees, Part II: a continued conversation with Bruce Egre and Alan Bise of Azica Records

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by Mike Telin

Egre-BiseOn Sunday, February 8, the 57th Grammy Awards will be presented in Los Angeles. ClevelandClassical.com wishes the best of luck to all the Northeast Ohio nominees.

Today we continue our discussion with Azica Records founder and recording engineer Bruce Egre (left) and classical music producer Alan Bise (right). Following an informative conversation about guitarist Jason Vieaux’s Grammy-nominated album Play, on Azica, and the nominating process, the topic turned to the ever-evolving recording industry.

I began by asking Egre and Bise to comment on the belief held by many: that the classical music recording industry is on its way to extinction. “No, I don’t think it’s dead and it won’t die. People are simply consuming the music differently, like streaming,” Bruce Egre commented. He added that while streaming is good for the consumer, in financial terms it’s not necessarily good for the artist or the label. [Read more…]

Northeast Ohio Grammy nominees, Part I: Jason Vieaux up for Best Classical Instrumental Solo

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by Mike Telin

Vieaux-Play-CDGuitarist Jason Vieaux’s solo album, Play, is among the five 2015 Grammy Award nominees in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo. The awards ceremony will take place on February 8 at Los Angeles’s Staples Center.

The album, released in January 2014 by Cleveland’s Azica Records, includes showpieces by Barrios, Sagreras, Bustamante, and Sainz De La Maza, as well as Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra and Capricho Arabe, Vieaux’s own arrangement of Duke Ellington’s In A Sentimental Mood, and Andrew York’s Sunburst, which had “Encores” as its original working title.

“The album is a culmination of Jason’s twenty years as a touring artist, a retrospective of encores,” Azica’s Bruce Egre, who engineered the recording, said in a recent conversation. “It took us months to figure out the title,” said producer Alan Bise. “We wanted it to say something interesting without becoming cheesy.”

How much does a title really matter these days? “That’s a good question,” Egre said. “With so much product coming out, especially in the classical world, you need to put something out there that is a little bit distinctive. What do you call an album of Haydn string quartets?” They settled on Play, and Egre admitted that the title has grown on him. [Read more…]

CIM musicians and performers with local ties win Grammy Nominations (updated)

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Vieaux-JasonCleveland Institute of Music faculty members Jason Vieaux, Jaime Laredo, Alan Bise and Bruce Egre and pianist Daniil Trifonov are among the nominees for the 57th Grammy Awards, to be presented in Los Angeles on February 8. [Read more…]

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