ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad
Ad

Apollo’s Fire: a chat with Jeannette Sorrell about the Baroque orchestra’s 26th Season

by

by Daniel Hathaway

SORRELL-JeannetteApollo’s Fire crowned its 25th anniversary season over the summer with sold-out performances at Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Cain Park. I reached Artistic Director Jeannette Sorrell to ask what’s ahead for Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra in 2017-2018.

Daniel Hathaway: You’ve planned some big works to begin and end your new season — Handel’s Israel in Egypt in the fall, and Monteverdi’s Orfeo in the Spring. I understand that you’ve created a special version of Handel’s famous, double-chorus oratorio for the October 12-15 performances in Northeast Ohio.

Jeannette Sorrell: I’ve always felt that Israel in Egypt is a great work, but performances I’ve heard didn’t always work for me. The original piece was in three parts, beginning with the “Lamentation on the Death of Jeremiah” and continuing with “Exodus” and “The Song of Moses.” Audiences today usually only hear the second and third parts, but the “Lamentation” contains some beautiful, poignant funeral music.

[Read more…]

Management Job opening – Apollo’s Fire

by

Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, is looking for a Development Manager. Key responsibilities include managing the Annual Fund and special events, in addition to playing a vital role in donor relations. The Development Manager will report to the General Manager and serve as a liaison with committees of the Board. This position requires refined interpersonal skills and effective leadership. Click here to download a full job description.

Apollo’s Fire: Vivaldi at Cain Park (July 29)

by

by Robert Rollin

AF-Olivier-JeannetteApollo’s Fire performed an outstanding early music concert at Cleveland Heights’ Cain Park Amphitheater last Saturday night, July 29. Outside the venue, wine tastings, accompanied vocals, and a lively barbershop quartet set a relaxed mood. The core of the program was the ensemble’s performance of Antonio Vivaldi’s complete The Four Seasons, with the four separate concerti spread throughout the evening. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire Artist Profile: violinist Susanna Perry Gilmore

by

by Daniel Hathaway

suzannegilmoreThis summer, Apollo’s Fire audiences have had the opportunity to hear violinist Susanna Perry Gilmore explore two dimensions of her musical persona that aren’t part of her day job as concertmaster of the Omaha Symphony Orchestra — and which Jeannette Sorrell and Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra are largely responsible for developing.

Perry Gilmore appeared as a folk fiddler in “Mediterranean Roots” during the month of June, then turned to Baroque violin as soloist in the “Summer” concerto of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. The Vivaldi program was presented twice earlier this month in Northeast Ohio before going on tour to Youngstown and the Tanglewood, Gretna, and Ravinia Festivals. The show returns for two final performances at Cain Park and Laurel School’s Butler Campus on July 29 and 30.

How did the violinist originally become involved with Apollo’s Fire? “It was a serendipitous meeting,” Perry Gilmore said in a telephone conversation, explaining that Sorrell had made a guest appearance with the Omaha Symphony in the spring of 2014 in an all-Vivaldi program. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “Mediterranean Roots” at Avon Lake UCC (June 11)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

AF-MRFor its annual plunge into the non-Baroque, Apollo’s Fire took its early summer audiences on a cultural excursion around the Mediterranean, a journey resembling the travels of Ziryab, a 9th-century African troubadour who was the Johann Gottlieb Goldberg of his era, the favorite oud player for the insomniac kalif of Baghdad.

Ziryab’s musical skills launched his wanderings — he was kicked out of the palace by its jealous regular minstrel — as well as inspiring co-curators Amanda Powell and Brian Kay to gather fifteen songs and dances from Medieval and Renaissance Spain, Cyprus, Italy, and Greece into an engaging program. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “Beethoven the Revolutionary” at CMA with Noah Bendix-Balgley (Apr. 28)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

AF-Bendix-Balgley-CMATo cap off its 25th anniversary season, Jeannette Sorrell and Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, made a big leap across historical and stylistic boundaries into the early Romantic music of Beethoven. In the second of four performances on Friday evening, April 28 at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Sorrell fielded an orchestra of 49 players (huge by AF standards) and joined forces with violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley (making his period instrument debut) to lead a spirited foray into music premiered in the first decade of the 19th century. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire caps off its 25th season with “Revolutionary Beethoven”

by

by Daniel Hathaway

afjsconductingHistorical performance groups have revitalized Baroque music by performing 17th- and 18th-century works on the instruments for which they were written. More recently, a number of those ensembles have made forays into the classical world of Haydn and Mozart and the early Romantic era of Beethoven and Mendelssohn, expanding their musical rhetoric and stretching the capabilities of their instruments.

Now add Jeannette Sorrell and Apollo’s Fire to that list. Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra will conclude their 25th-anniversary season with “Beethoven and Schubert Rediscovered,” a festival that includes four Beethoven concerts, a “Schubertiade,” a dance workshop, and lectures and panel discussions.

The Beethoven programs, which run from April 26-29, will feature Berlin Philharmonic first concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley performing the Violin Concerto. The program includes the Egmont Overture and the Fifth Symphony.

[Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “Sacred Bach — a spiritual journey” at St. Paul’s, Cleveland Heights (Mar. 24)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

Gascho-JosephHaving paid tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach’s prowess as a composer of orchestral music in its last set of concerts, Apollo’s Fire and Apollo’s Singers presented expertly performed examples of his Leipzig liturgical works at St. Paul’s in Cleveland Heights on Friday, March 24 with guest conductor Joseph Gascho at the helm. [Read more…]

Guest conductor Joseph Gascho to lead Apollo’s Fire in Bach sacred works

by

by Daniel Hathaway

Gascho-JosephHaving devoted its most recent concerts to Johann Sebastian Bach’s orchestral music, Apollo’s Fire will dedicate its next set of performances to three categories of works he wrote for the churches of Leipzig, where he served as Cantor from 1723 until his death in 1750.

The programs, which run from March 23-26 in Fairlawn, Cleveland Heights, and Rocky River, will include two Cantatas, a Motet, and a Missa Brevis.

Apollo’s Fire and Apollo’s Singers will be led by guest conductor and harpsichordist Joseph Gascho, who teaches on the faculty at the University of Michigan. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire: “Virtuoso Bach” in Rocky River (February 19)

by

by Robert Rollin

NAGY-DebraThis past week Apollo’s Fire, Cleveland’s Baroque orchestra conducted by Jeannette Sorrell, presented five performances of its “Virtuoso Bach” program. Sunday afternoon’s performance at Rocky River Presbyterian Church benefitted visually from the church’s lovely setting, but the high ceiling and wide space created a rather muddy acoustic that at times affected the clarity of sound. [Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us