by Daniel Hathaway
BlueWater Chamber Orchestra played the second of two identical weekend programs on Sunday afternoon, November 24 on the free Arts Renaissance Tremont series, a performance that featured violinist Jinjoo Cho in a spirited reading of the Tchaikovsky Concerto, and rarely heard works by Robert Schumann and Thomas Adès with Daniel Meyer at the helm. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
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 Schulich School of Music at McGill University.
Her time living in Cleveland saw her career take off. Cho won a major competition (International Violin Competition of Indianapolis), made an important solo debut (Carnegie Hall), took on teaching positions (CIM and Oberlin Conservatory), and founded and continues to run a summer festival (ENCORE Chamber Music in Gates Mills).
Cho has been featured by many of the area’s prominent ensembles and presenting organizations — and she’s still adding to that list. She will play Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto this weekend in her first appearances with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, led by Daniel Meyer.
by Mike Telin
If you had to have musicians living above you, judging from their performance at Pilgrim Church on Sunday, October 13, cellist Darrett Adkins and pianist Cicilia Yudha are two you would want to have. Their concert, which opened Arts Renaissance Tremont’s 29th season, featured intriguing works that proved a cello recital doesn’t always need to include music by the three B’s to hold you in rapt attention.
by Mike Telin
Since its founding in 1991, Arts Renaissance Tremont (ART) has been a cultural pillar in that West Side Cleveland neighborhood. And from the beginning, the organization has made its home at the historic Pilgrim Congregational UCC. Under the tireless direction of its founder and director Chris Haff-Paluck (left, with Jinjoo Cho), with assistance from a group of dedicated board members and volunteers, ART has remained true to its vision of keeping concerts free of charge.
On Sunday, October 13 at 3:00 pm, ART will kick off its 29th season with a recital by cellist Darrett Adkins and pianist Cicilia Yudha. Their program will feature works by Janáček, Kodály, Messiaen, and Chopin.
“Twenty-nine years — who knows where all the time has gone?” Haff-Paluck said during an interview, noting that the Tremont neighborhood was very different in the early ‘90s. “There are so many restaurants and galleries now, but it wasn’t that way back then. People wanted arts programs to be happening in the neighborhood.”
by Mike Telin
As Arts Renaissance Tremont (ART) begins its 29th season, the venerable organization will celebrate a new collaboration with the Rocky River Senior Center. On Friday, September 27 at 1:30 pm in the Center’s Auditorium, pianist Sara Daneshpour will perform works by Pierre Boulez, J.S. Bach, Chopin, and Ravel. Click here for program details. The free concert is part of ART’s ongoing Stepping Out Series. The concert is free (donations welcome) but tickets are required and can be reserved by calling 440.333.6660.
Stepping Out community concerts are geared toward seniors and those with limited mobility. The next ART/Rocky River Senior Center concert will feature violinist Shannon Lee and pianist Christine Hill on Saturday, November 2 at 1:30 pm.
by David Kulma
It’s February, and that means another lovely installment in the Amici Quartet’s multi-year Beethoven cycle for Arts Renaissance Tremont at Pilgrim Congregational Church. This year’s program on Sunday, February 10 included two quartets in the key of A that span the composer’s career. The Op. 18, No. 5 quartet is a jovial work with dark undercurrents from Beethoven’s first collection of six quartets published in 1800, while the late Heiliger Dankgesang quartet, Op. 132 from 1825, features a profound and patiently unfolding slow movement. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
Since the critic Theodor Adorno praised a string quartet as “latent opera” decades ago, it has become common to compare particularly cohesive, dramatic, or narrative events or artworks to opera. Present-day journalists often use the word “operatic” to connote high drama even in non-musical situations. When soprano Dina Kuznetsova and pianist Hyun Soo Kim performed a stunning selection of art songs on Sunday, November 18 at Pilgrim Church in Tremont, the concert felt like “latent opera” even before an encore pulled events into the realm of the truly operatic. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
“…or does it explode?” In a concert last week on the Arts Renaissance Tremont series, the poet Mwatabu Okantah spoke this line from Langston Hughes’s Harlem as the final chord of a movement from Bartók’s String Quartet No. 4 resounded. While the Cavani String Quartet, Okantah’s collaborators in the Collage: Music and Poetry project, paused, the Professor and Poet-in-Residence at Kent State University shot the audience a knowing smile and asked, “is everyone alright?” [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
If you’ve ever been curious about weaving together music and spoken word — or if you’ve ever doubted it’s even worthwhile trying — take a listen here to a powerful, surprising combination: the music of Dvořák, played by the Cavani Quartet, and the original poetry of Mwatabu Okantah.
Then, for the price of a freewill offering, go hear the Quartet and Okantah in their program “Collage: Music & Poetry” on the Arts Renaissance Tremont series this Sunday, October 14 at 3:00 pm at Pilgrim Congregational Church. The interweaving not only of two art forms, but also of African and European cultural roots, promises to be fascinating — and a different experience from watching it online, as Cavani violinist Mari Sato told me during a recent telephone conversation.
“If you have that afternoon free and can experience it live, I have to say it’s quite magical,” Sato said. “The messages of the African-American experience, self-discovery, and friendship resonate deeply and move me every time. And the weaving in and out of the poetry with the music is different with each performance as we feed off of one another’s energy and enjoy the interplay of the two art forms. That spontaneity makes for a very live experience. There is nothing like it.” [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
Tradition or innovation, familiarity or freshness? These are and always have been false choices, as pianist Cicilia Yudha demonstrated in a concert last week. With a program spanning almost exactly three hundred years of music, Yudha concluded Arts Renaissance Tremont’s 27th season with a recital that sparkled and surprised. [Read more…]