Apollo's FIre Countryside Concerts Archives

Apollo’s Fire to feature flamenco guitarist Jeremy Garcia in ¡HISPANIA! concerts

May 28, 2025 by Mike Telin

by Mike Telin

On Wednesday, May 28 at 7:30 pm in Harkness Chapel, Apollo’s Fire will present a send-off concert of their popular program ¡HISPANIA! before traveling to Puerto Rico to perform at the Casals Festival.

When they return, the ensemble will bring a new version of that program to the Holden Arboretum in Kirtland for five performances from June 5–8 and to Avon Lake United Church of Christ for a single performance on June 9. Tickets are available online.

This all-instrumental version of ¡HISPANIA! led by Jeannette Sorrell features the lively dance rhythms of “tangos and fandangos” from Spain and Argentina. An 11-piece ensemble explores the influence of Arab-infused flamenco dance music on Spanish Baroque composers – including Diego Ortiz, Gaspar Sanz, and Santiago de Murcia.

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire & The Early Folk Band bring old ballads to life in Avon Lake (June 9)

June 13, 2019 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

Apollo’s Fire’s Countryside Concerts usually draw on folk music that has travelled from the Old World to the New, but this year’s program delved deeper into musical emigration. Three Clevelanders were joined by three members of Europe’s The Early Folk Band in an engaging concert of ballads that have both been frozen in place by literary collectors and constantly altered through the oral tradition in the British Isles and North America. Like some members of Apollo’s Fire, the musicians of The Early Folk Band play pre-1800s music on period instruments but also have a parallel interest in folk music, and seek to bridge the gap between two genres that already have much in common. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland opening night: “Lost and Found” in Mixon Hall (June 11)

by Daniel Hathaway

The thirteenth season of ChamberFest Cleveland began on an auspicious note with “Lost and Found,” a sold-out opening concert on Wednesday, June 11 at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall.

The Festival put a special mark on the occasion by fielding two of its largest ensembles for the opening and closing works, and by presenting the Cleveland premiere of a riveting work by one of CFC’s four composer-performers in between.

Pianists Michael Stephen Brown and Roman Rabinovich shared thousands of notes as soloists in Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concerto in C for two claviers, a product of the composer’s concerts in Zimmermann’s Leipzig Coffee House, when he increasingly turned his attention away from church duties and produced concerts with University musicians. The C-major concerto is apparently unique for not having been arranged from an earlier work. [Read on…]

Margi Griebling-Haigh’s The Higgler gets a curious, yet charming, world premiere (June 8)

by Stephanie Manning

The Higgler is an opera about missed opportunities, mixed signals, and difficult decisions. So what awaits its regretful characters once the story ends? Well, your guess is as good as mine.

The ambiguous ending of Margi Griebling-Haigh’s opera is perhaps its biggest paradox. On one hand, when the lights went up not long after a key plot reveal, it left plenty of unanswered questions. On the other, it was hard not to be charmed by the world premiere production at Disciples Christian Church in Cleveland Heights, which I saw on June 8.

The quandary about the ending originates not from Griebling-Haigh’s libretto, but from the original text — A.E. Coppard’s short story “The Higgler,” which the composer follows almost to the letter. Narrator Joseph Hollings occasionally read out verbatim passages, describing certain scenes that wouldn’t have otherwise been possible with the limited set. But director Marla Berg ensured that all transitions were clear, and the rotating backdrops allowed up to three distinct locations to be represented onstage at one time. [Read on…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Reflections” at Church of the Saviour (June 13)

by Kevin McLaughlin

The second program of ChamberFest Cleveland’s 2025 season, titled “Reflections,” offered a varied but carefully sequenced triptych, was presented on June 13 at Church of the Saviour in Cleveland Heights. Works by Arvo Pärt, Anton Arensky, and Camille Saint-Saëns captivated with a blend of suspended time, remembrance, and fervent sweep.

Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel (“Mirror[s] in the Mirror”) was a remarkable opener, drawing violinist Gabrielle Després and pianist Michael Stephen Brown into a meditative dialogue and listeners into a quasi-hypnotic state. Després’s playing was austere and strangely luminous — testaments to her musical imagination and steady bow arm. She beautifully shaped each phrase — sharpening the listeners’ focus and slowing the collective pulse. Brown’s piano triads resonated with bell-like purity, so finely braided with Després’s lines that the effect was clairvoyant. As each violin note faded, the piano gently cued the next — gestures mirroring one another like eternal reflections in glass.

[Read on…]

Hao Yang and Helen Zhibing Huang celebrate Chinese culture at the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival (June 5)

by Stephanie Manning

The opportunity to hear rare repertoire is exciting enough. But hearing it performed so beautifully made the evening of June 5 truly special.

As part of the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival, guitarist Hao Yang and soprano Helen Zhibing Huang presented a lovingly curated program that blended their Chinese heritage and Western musical training. At the centerpiece was a collection of songs set to Chinese poetry — providing a look into this gorgeous repertoire.

Both performers grew up in China before coming to study in the U.S., and each spoke about their personal connection to this program. “We’re so grateful we get to connect to our culture through this beautiful music,” Huang told the audience in the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall. [Read on…]

Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival: recitals by Alan Mearns, Laura Snowden & Petra Polácková (June 7 & 8)

by Daniel Hathaway

Northern Ireland-born guitarist Alan Mearns, now based in North Carolina, gave the first of three very different recitals I heard at the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival. He performed on Saturday afternoon, June 7 in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Following the plan he described in an interview, his solo recital largely featured transcriptions and arrangements of works not originally intended for the guitar, a topic he addressed in a lecture conversation with Jonathan Leathwood the day before.

The gist of that session, Mearns said, was that arrangers are really re-composing pieces that should sound as native as possible on new instruments, but need not slavishly include every note of the original. [Read on…]

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