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Violinist Amy Lee charts new paths at Arts Renaissance Tremont

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by Mike Telin

After stepping down from her position as Associate Concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra at the end of last season in order to teach full-time at the Oberlin Conservatory, violinist Amy Lee is exploring new career directions.

On Sunday, November 15 at 3:00 pm at Pilgrim Congregational Church, Arts Renaissance Tremont will present “ChARTing New Paths,” featuring the Oberlin Trio — Amy Lee, violin, Dmitry Kouzov, cello, and Haewon Song, piano — in Mendelssohn’s Trio No. 1 in D minor.

The program also includes Dolores White’s Blue Dialogues. The Trio will be joined by Yun-Ting Lee, violin, Rebekah Edewards & Joanna Patterson Zakany, violas, Jeffrey Rathbun, oboe, Bill O’Connell, narrator, and Alyson Rzeszotarski, percussion, for Anthony Dilorenzo’s Thanksgiving-inspired work, Cecil the Turkey. The concert is free.

I spoke to Lee by phone to find out more.

Mike Telin: The program title Charting New Paths, is very apt because you certainly are doing that right now.

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Cleveland Orchestra with English horn soloist Robert Walters at Severance (Nov. 13)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The keyword for Thursday evening November 13 at Severance Music Center was stamina.

Without that essential quality, the performance of two demanding works by English hornist Robert Walters and The Cleveland Orchestra, led by guest conductor Tugan Sokhiev, might have fallen flat.

Instead, the concert entered the record books as a meticulously played sonic spectacular.

Geoffey Gordon’s Mad Song, written in 2020 after a fascinating poem by the 18th-century English mystic William Blake, was commissioned for Dimitri Mestdag, solo English horn of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra.

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Joe Hisaishi leads Cleveland Orchestra in genre-blending concert at Severance (Sept. 4)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio – If you know the name Joe Hisaishi, it’s likely thanks to Studio Ghibli. Since the 1980s, the Japanese composer has scored many of the animation studio’s most iconic films, including the Oscar-winning “Spirited Away” and the beloved “Howl’s Moving Castle.”

When not writing for the screen, Hisaishi composes contemporary classical music. His distinctly minimalist style sets these works apart from his more tuneful film scores.

On Thursday evening, Sept. 4, he brought examples of both to Severance Music Center for “Hisaishi Conducts Hisaishi,” a program featuring The Cleveland Orchestra and viola soloist Antoine Tamestit in an exploratory journey of texture, tone and rhythm.

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Conductor Kazuki Yamada’s stylish Cleveland Orchestra debut features Elgar, Mozart, and pianist Francesco Piemontesi (Apr. 24)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Edward Elgar’s first symphony was a long time coming. But once the British composer finally put pen to paper at age 51, audiences at the time simply couldn’t get enough. But tastes change, and that rapturous response in 1908 couldn’t guarantee eternal success. The piece has now settled into relative obscurity for many American orchestras.

Today, Britain is still the most likely place to hear Elgar’s Symphony No. 1 — so it made sense that The Cleveland Orchestra’s performance on April 24 should be led by the conductor of a British ensemble. City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra music director Kazuki Yamada ascended the Severance Music Center podium, making his assured and elegant Cleveland Orchestra debut.

Elgar’s symphony is unconcerned with quaint, pastoral English scenes — instead, it’s often stormy, celebratory, and in-your-face, sometimes all at once. On Thursday, Yamada confirmed his reputation for passion and expressivity as a conductor in his interpretation of the symphony.

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Cleveland Orchestra In Focus 4 with Nicholas McGegan (debut Dec. 10)

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by Daniel Hathaway

British-born conductor Nicholas McGegan made what he reckoned was his third Thanksgiving weekend appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra a few weeks ago, but this time the event was recorded in an empty Severance Hall for later release on the Orchestra’s Adella streaming platform beginning December 10.

His agenda is his specialty: Baroque music, which he characterizes in his remarks as “over the top, what I like in music. It’s as if you take the front of the Supreme Court Building — very symmetrical, nice columns — and put all the frou-frou of fancy violin parts on top of the rough and tumble and fun part of the music.” Comparing it to jazz, he notes “in this music you have to do a lot of it for yourself.” [Read more…]

Jakub Hrůša guest conducts two November Cleveland Orchestra concerts (Nov. 9 & 14)

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by Daniel Hathaway

You can usually count on Jakub Hrůša to offer up some Czech music during his guest conducting appearances at Severance Hall. Not this time, but in his recent two weekends of concerts, works by Russian, American, and Austrian composers revealed the conductor’s ability to communicate in multiple musical languages. His readings of Shostakovich and John Adams were as probing and masterful as his takes on Beethoven and Mahler were fresh and surprising, and he brought his colleagues along with him all the way. [Read more…]

Season 14 of Close Encounters, Year 20 of Heights Arts

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Close Encounters Chamber Music and artistic director Isabel Trautwein have two reasons to celebrate: the series’ 14th season, and the 20th year of its parent organization, Heights Arts.

The minds behind the scheduling have kept things simple for concertgoers to store away in their brains (and for writers to explain): the four concerts take place on Sundays at 3:00 pm, which does seem like a particularly nice time for “up close and personal” chamber music, just as the series likes it. Single and season tickets are available online.

Up first is the Omni Quartet on October 13 at a Carriage House on Herrick Mews Lane in Cleveland Heights. Cleveland Orchestra musicians Amy Lee and Alicia Koelz, violins, Wesley Collins, viola, and Tanya Ell, cello, will bring along Haydn’s Trio in C, Hob V:G1, Mozart’s Quartet No. 22 in B-flat, and Robert Schumann’s Quartet No. 3 in A — written during his exuberant, love-filled first year of marriage to Clara Wieck.

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Plano joins Omni Quartet on CIPC Concert Series (June 8)

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by Daniel Hathaway

When Roberto Plano won gold in the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 2001, the contest hadn’t yet established a chamber music requirement in addition to solo recitals and a concerto. Plano more than made up for that in his most recent return to Cleveland. On Saturday evening, June 8, he joined the Omni Quartet to end his CIPC Concert Series recital in CIM’s Kulas Hall with a stunning performance of Brahms’ f-minor Piano Trio. [Read more…]

CIPC Concert Series: catching up with pianist Roberto Plano

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by Daniel Hathaway

Italian-born pianist Roberto Plano, who won first prize in the 2001 Cleveland International Piano Competition, will play the next recital in CIPC’s Concert Series on Saturday, June 8 at 8:00 pm in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

In addition to playing solo repertoire by Respighi, Liszt, Tárrega, Villa-Lobos, and Ginastera, Plano will join the Omni Quartet (Cleveland Orchestra musicians Amy Lee, Alicia Koelz, Joanna Zakany, and Charles Bernard) to close the evening with Brahms’ f-minor Piano Quintet. Tickets are available online.

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Heights Arts Close Encounters: Omni Quartet & Friends (Feb. 10)

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by Nicholas Stevens

Mid-February finds most Northeast Ohioans in a kind of limbo. A month remains before the sun once again shines for twelve hours a day. At a time of year like this, it helps the listener cope when musicians kindle sonic warmth. Playing in an intimate setting that looked out on the sparse, snow-dusted gardens of the Dunham Tavern Museum in Cleveland, the Omni Quartet and four guest players did just that on February 10, in an installment of Heights Arts’ Close Encounters Chamber Music series designed to combat the deepest winter blues.

[Read more…]

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