by Daniel Hathaway
The original plan for the season finale of Arts Renaissance Tremont called for the Cavani Quartet — joint artistic directors of the series at St. Wendelin Church — to join the Verona Quartet, Oberlin Conservatory’s resident string quartet, to form an octet. But when a member of the Cavani became indisposed, the Verona agreed to play the whole program on Sunday afternoon, May 5.
Although the audience at St. Wendelin might have been surprised by the change in plans, nobody could possibly have been disappointed. Violinists Jonathon Ong and Dorothy Ro, violist Abigail Rojansky, and cellist Jonathan Dormand gave revelatory accounts of Mendelssohn’s first and Beethoven’s fifteenth quartets. And they very likely introduced all but a few cognoscenti in the audience to the fascinating music of Grażyna Bacewicz with the Fourth Quartet by the Lithuanian-Polish violinist and composer, who lived from 1909 to 1969.
Playing in an established chamber group is all about routine and slow, gradual progress. There’s something comforting about playing with the same people over and over again, familiarizing yourself with their style and quirks. But sometimes, temporary chamber groups — perhaps formed for one concert only — can inject some extra fun and excitement. On Sunday, February 19, two generations of musicians shared the stage at St. Wendelin Church as Arts Renaissance Tremont presented a program of Schumann and Brahms.
In a message posted on Sunday, April 26, 2020, Arts Renaissance Tremont board president Fred Calatrello wrote:
Thanks (or no thanks) to the pandemic, Arts Renaissance Tremont will open its new season in mid-winter rather than the fall, and due to other circumstances will move its performances from Pilgrim to St. Wendelin Church. The series will also be under new management: the Cavani Quartet will take over its artistic leadership following the passing of its founder, Christine Haff-Paluck.
The Cavani Quartet’s well-attended concert on Sunday, November 21 at St. Wendelin Church marked the sixth of eight performances in the ensemble’s roaming “Beethoven and Beyond” series, as well as the beginning of the 30th season of the Arts Renaissance Tremont series.
COVID-19 may have interrupted the celebration of Beethoven’s 250th Birthday in December 2020, but the Cavani String Quartet has made that event a moveable feast.
On April 25, 2020, my wife Chris Haff-Paluck passed away due to health complications related to breast cancer, lupus, and diabetes. For more than forty years, Chris had been a freelance double bassist, educator, mentor to young musicians, concert presenter, and arts manager at the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the founder and moving spirit of Arts Renaissance Tremont (ART).
Violinist Jinjoo Cho was born in Seoul and lives in Montreal, but you could easily say she’s from Northeast Ohio. She moved here as a teenager and enrolled in the Cleveland Institute of Music’s young artist program, and she didn’t leave the area until last year, when she joined the faculty of the