ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad

ChamberFest goes outdoors with “Music on the Path” (June 16)

by

by Max Newman

The 2024 edition of ChamberFest Cleveland has already seen a variety of wonderful events since its opening on June 12. However, the June 16 musical celebration of “CFC at the Nature Center: Music on the Path,” was the perfect addition to ChamberFest’s diverse programming and undoubtedly put a smile on the faces of all who attended.

Centered around the parking lot of the Nature Center, the sunlit late-morning event at Shaker Lakes had an inviting, family-friendly atmosphere. [Read more…]

Harpist Bridget Kibbey makes ChamberFest debut

by

by Mike Telin

ChamberFest Cleveland launches its 2024 season — three weeks’ worth of concerts inspired by the theme of  “Sacred and Profane” — on Wednesday, June 12 at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall.

Opening night marks the ChamberFest debut of harpist Bridget Kibbey, who will be featured in Claude Debussy’s Danse sacrée et danse profane — and throughout the first week of the festival. Tickets for all performances are available online.

I caught up with the Findlay, Ohio native on Zoom and began our delightful conversation by asking her if it was true that she first heard the harp in a church.

Bridget Kibbey: That’s true. It was a small country Mennonite church. I was taking piano lessons at the time and one of my Suzuki piano kid mates’ mother was a harpist. I saw her play and was just floored, so I started lessons with her right away at age nine. That’s what makes Ohio so special, there’s so many local music studios. I think that’s why Ohio produces great musicians, great music teachers, and music lovers.

[Read more…]

Kenney stands in for Khachatryan with Reinhardt and The Cleveland Orchestra (July 30)

by

by Jacob Strauss

On July 30, guest conductor Ruth Reinhardt made her Cleveland Orchestra debut with Grażyna Bacewicz’s Overture, Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, and Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 5 at Blossom Music Center. Violinist Alexi Kenney replaced Sergey Khachatryan, who had to withdraw from the performance due to visa complications.

In an interview with ClevelandClassical.com, Reinhardt described Bacewicz as a fantastic, yet underrated composer. “As you listen to her works more, you do hear that she has her own voice.”

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland:
“Timeless Explorations” (June 25)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

The first piece of business at ChamberFest Cleveland’s June 25 concert in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music was rearranging the order of the program. “Timeless Explorations” was to have begun with a new piece, but probably for practical reasons involving a prepared piano, Yevgeniy Sharlat’s Dumka-22 and Beethoven’s Piano Trio, Op. 70, No. 2 traded places.

Violinist Diana Cohen, cellist Jonathan Swensen, and pianist Andrius Žlabys launched the sixth concert of ChamberFest’s tenth anniversary season with an effervescent performance of Beethoven’s least-performed trio. Bedecked with sparkling runs and ensemble flourishes and set in the gemütlich key of E-flat, the piece made an attractive opener and served as a lovely vehicle for the musicians to express their unassuming virtuosity.

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: Color X Expanse (June 24)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

At the Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church on Friday, June 24, the repertoire was indeed both colorful and expansive as the excellent musicians of ChamberFest Cleveland explored works ranging from the sentimental (Fritz Kreisler’s Three Pieces for Piano Trio) to the evanescent (Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Quintet No. 1), from the stark and compact (George Walker’s Piano Sonata No. 5) to the delightfully verbose (Zoltán Kodály’s Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7).

Violinist Alexi Kenney, cellist Jonathan Swensen, and pianist Andrius Žlabys raised the curtain with three light pieces arranged by a virtuoso violinist famous for his encores. Kreisler’s takes on The Old Refrain, Farewell to Cucullain (a.k.a. Londonderry Air or Oh Danny Boy), and Miniature Viennese March worked equally well as preludial bon-bons. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland:
catching up with Alexi Kenney

by

by Mike Telin 

Violinist Alexi Kenney was in his early twenties when he made his ChamberFest Cleveland debut. Still, his résumé up to that point was already impressive. He had won the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, had given recitals at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and was the recipient of top prizes at the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition and the Mondavi Center Competition.

Since then Alexi Kenney has established a career that is his own. He regularly creates  experimental programs, commissions new works, solos with major orchestras around the world, and is a constant figure at renowned chamber music festivals. He is also the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.

And this week Kenney will once again return to ChamberFest. I caught up with the violinist by telephone. 

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland — Luscious Soundscapes (June 16)

by

by Mike Telin

On Wednesday, June 16 at 7:00 at The Grove Amphitheatre, ChamberFest’s theme of the evening was Luscious Soundscapes and included music by Richard Strauss and Amy Beach.

However, it was pianist Shai Wosner’s imaginative interweaving of sonatas by Italian Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti with sonatas by American composer Frederick Rzewski that got things off to a fascinating start. [Read more…]

Father’s Day with ChamberFest: Alexi Kenney and Ferdinand the Bull

by

by Jarrett Hoffman

This Father’s Day, skip the awkward conversations with dad and instead sit down with him to enjoy an hour of music together, courtesy of ChamberFest Cleveland.

On Sunday, June 20 at 3:00 pm, six musicians and one narrator will gather at The Grove Amphitheatre to share a family-friendly program highlighted by Alain Ridout’s Ferdinand the Bull and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s La Poule (“The Hen”). The selections also include music by Richard Strauss, Antonín Dvořák, Helen Grime, and Franz Schubert. Reserve a free ticket here.

The Ridout piece, for solo violin and narrator, is a musical retelling of Munro Leaf’s classic children’s book The Story of Ferdinand. That heart-warming and humorous tale centers around a bull who stays true to himself — he enjoys smelling the flowers and having a bit of peace and quiet, even when he somehow ends up in the middle of a bullring.

Translated into more than 60 languages since its publication in 1936, the book has been read in households all over the world, including that of at least one ChamberFest musician when he was a kid. “My parents would read it to me when I was little,” violinist Alexi Kenney said in a recent interview. “It was one of my favorite children’s books.”

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland:
Looking Ahead at Week 2

by

by Mike Telin

The second week of ChamberFest Cleveland begins on Wednesday, June 16 at 7:00 pm at The Grove Amphitheatre in Mayfield. Admission is free, but reservations are required. A full weekly calendar listing is below.

The program “Luscious Soundscapes” begins with pianist Shai Wosner’s imaginative interweaving of sonatas by Italian Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) with sonatas by American composer Frederick Rzewski (1938 -). Wosner’s three pairings include Scarlatti’s Sonata in d K. 141 with Rzewski’s Nanosonata No. 36 (“To a Young Man”), Scarlatti’s Sonata in d K. 9 with Rzewski’s Nanosonata No. 38 (“To a Great Guy”), and Scarlatti’s Sonata in c K. 230 with Rzewski’s Nanosonata No. 12.

If juxtaposing music by these two seemingly dissimilar composers sounds like an oddity, Wosner believes they make an interesting match. “I love Scarlatti and I love Rezewski,” the pianist said during an interview. “And I think that Scarlatti and Rzewski are mavericks in similar ways. Of course their music is very different from one another’s, and Rzewski was not trying to emulate Scarlatti in any way with his short sonatas. The Nanosonatas are almost like a stream of consciousness, but I hear that in the Scarlattis as well.” [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Mozart the Giant” (June 20)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

Mozart the influencer was documented in music for winds by Beethoven and Poulenc for ChamberFest Cleveland’s fifth program on Thursday, June 20 in CIM’s Mixon Hall, while the notion of “Mozart the Giant” was affirmed by the composer’s own String Quintet in D. The first part of the evening was distinguished by elegant wind playing every bit as refined as what you would expect from a world-class string quartet, yet fully capable of incisive punctuation when the music called for emphatic gestures.

[Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us