Alina Ibragimova Archives - Cleveland Classical

Cleveland Orchestra with Juanjo Mena & violinist Alina Ibragimova (February 12)

February 17, 2015 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

The music of Jan Sibelius is a conundrum for many conductors and soloists. Make it sound too German or too Russian and its special qualities go missing in action. Spanish guest conductor Juanjo Mena was on the right track with Sibelius’s seventh symphony on Thursday evening at Severance Hall, while guest violinist Alina Ibragimova made something entirely her own of Sibelius’s violin concerto. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: Twenty minutes with Juanjo Mena

February 10, 2015 by Jarrett Hoffman

by Mike Telin

“This is a fantastic season for me in North America,” the engagingly soft-spoken Spanish conductor Juanjo Mena said during a telephone conversion. “The Cleveland Orchestra is one of the amazing orchestras in the world. It’s like a little dream, and it will be a pleasure for me to be there.”

On Thursday, February 12 at 7:30 pm and Saturday, February 14 at 8:00 pm, Juanjo Mena will make his Cleveland Orchestra debut with a program featuring works by Jean Sibelius and Arnold Schoenberg. Mena, who is Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, UK, has been rapidly gaining attention in North America. This season he is making return visits to the orchestras of Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, as well as debuts with the New York Philharmonic and the Montreal Symphony in addition to Cleveland. [Read more…]

Oberlin Opera stages a Cendrillon of professional quality (Nov. 10)

by Daniel Hathaway

Any regional opera company would be popping its buttons with pride to have produced such an impressive performance of Jules Massenet’s Cendrillion (Cinderella) as Oberlin Opera did in Hall Auditorium on Sunday afternoon, November 10.

Imaginative staging by Stephanie Havey, skillful pacing by conductor James Feddeck, beautiful set design and costuming by Laura Carlson-Tarantowski and Chris Flaharty, respectively, plus dramatic and — for the fairies — enchanting lighting by Jeremy K. Benjamin provided a supportive environment for splendid singing by the cast and brilliant playing by the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra.

Literally thousands of versions of the Cinderella tale exist in cultures around the globe, but many of the details of Massenet’s opera date back to Charles Perrault’s 1697 Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre, which adds what have now become essential elements to the tale: a young girl mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters, who temporarily attracts the attention of a handsome prince at a royal ball and is eventually reunited with him to become a princess herself. [Read on…]

Seraph Brass dances through musical travels in Rocky River (Nov. 11)

by Stephanie Manning

Before Seraph Brass arrived in Ohio on November 11, the group’s fall touring season had taken them on the road to Missouri, Florida, New York, and even Peru. And at the Rocky River Chamber Music Society, they gave the audience a taste of the traveling life right from the first piece.

The “Prelude” from Edvard Greig’s Holberg Suite whisked listeners away to Norway, with a melody surely familiar to many. It was extra familiar to the brass quintet themselves, who launched into their opening number without sheet music. Playing memorized is part of the group’s trademark, and they smoothly alternated using music and no music throughout the evening. Either way, the wide-ranging program had those at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church spellbound.

Trumpet players Mary Elizabeth Bowden and Raquel Samayoa, horn player Layan Atieh, trombonist Lauren Casey-Clyde, and tuba player Robyn Black sounded equally comfortable in Romantic and contemporary repertoire, flipping between both with practiced ease. [Read on…]

Cleveland Orchestra’s Beethoven Concerto Cycle performance featured pairing of rising star and mentor (Nov. 15)

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

By Daniel Hathaway

CLEVELAND, Ohio — For the third program in The Cleveland Orchestra’s Beethoven Piano Concerto Cycle, the pairing of 20-year-old Korean pianist Yunchan Lim with his mentor Minsoo Sohn was an astute programming decision.

Well-established names on the concert circuit — Orion Weiss, Sir Stephen Hough, and Garrick Ohlsson — had already filled the empty solo spots for the composer’s Triple Concerto and solo concertos 2, 3, and 4. But the choice of the youngest pianist ever to win the Van Cliburn Competition to close out the Cleveland series packed Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center on Friday evening, November 15, with a near-capacity audience teeming with enthusiastic young people.

[Read on…]

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