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Poiesis Quartet to join Mezzo-Soprano Nancy Maultsby at Baldwin Wallace

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by Mike Telin

Winning a competition can serve as a jump-start to a young musician or chamber ensemble. Case in point: the Poiesis Quartet, founded during Oberlin Conservatory’s Advanced Quartet Seminar program in Fall 2022. During their first year as an ensemble, they became the 2023 Grand Prize winner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. They were also awarded the Gold Medal and BIPOC Prize at the 2023 St. Paul String Quartet Competition.

And when Cleveland Orchestra trombonist and composer Richard Stout was looking for a string quartet to perform his Songs of Correspondence — which he wrote for his Baldwin Wallace faculty colleague Nancy Maultsby — on the opening concert of the Rocky River Chamber Music Society series in October, he sought out the Poiesis. Click here to read an interview with Richard Stout.

On Monday, March 25 at 7:30 pm in Gamble Auditorium, Nancy Maultsby and the Poiesis Quartet — Sarah Ma and Max Ball (violins), Jasper de Boor (viola), and Drew Dansby (cello) — will perform Stout’s song cycle based on letters of Willa Cather. The program will also include Clint Needham’s String Quartet No. 2, “Shades Of Green.” The concert is free.

[Read more…]

Soprano Jennifer Rowley returns to BW (Feb. 13)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Soprano Jennifer Rowley and pianist Jason Aquila brought an unmistakable love for bel canto singing to Gamble Auditorium at Baldwin Wallace the evening of February 13. In a recital entitled “Inspirazione,” Rowley acknowledged her indebtedness to the mostly bel canto composers on the program and to the conductors and collaborators who have thus far aided her career. She hoped to repay the debt in kind to the excited BW voice students listening from the balcony.

As a BW alumna from not so long ago (’02), Rowley has clearly made good. She’s had roles at the Met, Carnegie Hall, the Paris Opera, and Covent Garden, and sung under the batons of Zubin Mehta and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The songs of Bellini and Verdi on this program were touching, but it wasn’t until the later dramatic arias (and a backstage dash for water) that her full vocal command seemed to awaken. [Read more…]

Met Opera star Jennifer Rowley returns to Baldwin Wallace

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by Mike Telin

“Be Prepared” may be the Scout motto but it is also the personal mantra of opera star Jennifer Rowley. “In my career I’ve had a lot of opportunities to jump in at the last minute for someone who was ill,” the soprano said during a telephone conversation from New York City. “And if I hadn’t been prepared to seize each of those moments, I wouldn’t be where I am right now.”

This season the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory alum returns to The Metropolitan Opera to perform the title roles in Puccini’s Tosca and Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur. It also marks her debut with Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, singing Leonora in Verdi’s Il trovatore. And when she’s not traveling to opera houses around the world, Rowley serves as BW’s 2018-2019 guest Artist-in-Residence.

On February 15 at 7:00 pm, Rowley will return to her alma mater to present a concert of bel canto scenes and songs with pianist Jason Aquila in Gamble Auditorium. On Saturday, February 16 at 4:00 pm in Fynes Hall, Rowley will work with students during a master class. Both events are free. [Read more…]

Organist Todd Wilson to be featured in BW improvisation workshops & concert

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by Daniel Hathaway

Over his keys the musing organist, | Beginning doubtfully and far away, | First lets his fingers wander as they list, | And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay: | Then, as the touch of his loved instrument | Gives hopes and fervor, nearer draws his theme, | First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent | Along the wavering vista of his dream.

Thus begins James Russell Lowell’s The Vision of Sir Launfal (1867), a poetic description of an organist improvising at the keyboard — an act of instantaneous musical creation that had all but disappeared except from organ lofts, usually French, by the dawning of the 20th century.

Improvisation is now on the rise again, not only through the fingers of organists. “It’s now infecting other musicians as well,” Todd Wilson said in a recent telephone conversation. “Chamber music groups, orchestras, everybody’s doing it.”

Wilson, who is music director at Cleveland’s Trinity Cathedral, professor of organ at the Cleveland Institute of Music, curator of Severance Hall’s E.M. Skinner organ, and a well-known concert organist, is an enthusiastic improviser whose talents are expressed not only during church services. [Read more…]

Roomful of Teeth vocal ensemble at Baldwin Wallace (April 3)

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by Daniel Hathaway

ROOMFULL-OF-TEETHFounded in 2009 by Brad Wells, Roomful of Teeth consistently proves that the human voice is among the most versatile instruments in music. The ensemble’s concert in Gamble Auditorium at Baldwin Wallace on Sunday evening, April 3, demonstrated the astonishing variety of non-traditional sounds that eight sets of vocal cords can produce. [Read more…]

Baldwin Wallace FOCUS Festival to feature music by David Lang

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by Mike Telin

LANG-DavidWhen questions arise while learning a new piece of music, there’s no greater resource for musicians than the composers themselves. Beginning on Wednesday, March 16, Baldwin Wallace University’s Conservatory of Music will kick off its biennial FOCUS Festival, which will feature three concerts of music by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang. And yes, Lang will be on hand to answer any questions that students and faculty may have regarding his music and career.

“The festival has been going on since the ‘70s, and it all started because we don’t get to ask composers like Bach any questions,” BW composer-in-residence and assistant professor of music Clint Needham said during a telephone conversation. [Read more…]

NEOSonicFest: a conversation with Cleveland Chamber Symphony’s Stephen Smith

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by Daniel Hathaway

SMITH-Steven NewNEOSonicFest, now in its third season, is the invention of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, who will anchor the festival’s 2016 programs with concerts on March 9 and 16. Other performances under the NSF umbrella have already featured two concerts by flutist Carlton Vickers sponsored by No Exit, and a performance by FiveOne Experimental Orchestra. The festival will continue with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in “Music and Its Industry: music from video games” on Saturday, March 12, and a program of works by members of the Cleveland Composers Guild on Sunday, March 13.

“NEOSonicFest is a bit more spread out this year,” Smith said in a telephone conversation from Virginia, where he conducts the Richmond Symphony. “That’s partly so we could capture two weekends, as we like to do, but we also ended up extending it to connect with the Baldwin Wallace Focus Festival. Our final concert on March 16 will also be their opening concert, which is an exciting development.” [Read more…]

Iron Composer competition to move to Great Lakes Science Center, Cleveland for final concert Sep. 26

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by Jarrett Hoffman

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A live gerbil as compositional material—it’s the most recent suggestion for a “secret musical ingredient” on the Iron Composer competition’s Facebook page, and contest director Joe Drew, for one, is open to it. “People say stuff, and they think it’s too crazy, but I could see a scenario where that would work,” said Drew over telephone as we talked about the upcoming 8th installment of Iron Composer, a project of Analog Arts. The competition will take place September 26 and will culminate in a free public concert at 8:00 that evening at the Great Lakes Science Center on Erieside Avenue in downtown Cleveland. Emceed by Mark Satola of WCLV, the concert will also be broadcast live on the station (104.9 FM) and on wclv.com.

[Read more…]

Preview: Baldwin Wallace Opera: Hansel and Gretel — a conversation with director Benjamin Wayne Smith

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by Daniel Hathaway

BW-H&G-Costumes“We started out knowing the story,” said stage director Benjamin Wayne Smith, but then we realized that there’s more there than we all thought — layers and layers. It functions on so many levels. You can bring your six-year-old and they’ll be enchanted with what they see from the naturalistic colors of the first two acts to the garish, bright candy colors of the third act. Plus there’s so much nuance in the music that it appeals both to the seasoned musician and the casual listener. It’s so tuneful you fall in love with it right away.”

Englebert Humperdinck’s operatic version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel can be played in many different ways, but Smith took his cue from the music in conceptualizing Baldwin Wallace’s production of the show, which opens in the John Patrick Theatre at the Kleist Center in Berea on Thursday evening, February 20 and runs through four performances, ending with a matinee on Sunday, February 23.

“The opera is just not as dark as the original story, especially in its portrayal of Hansel and Gretel’s parents. [Read more…]

Review: BW Focus Festival showcases music of Christopher Theofanidis (November 2 & 3)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Theofanidis---ChristopherLast week at Baldwin Wallace University, Christopher Theofanidis joined a distinguished list of composers — including such names as William Bolcom, John Corigliano, Witold Lutoslawski and Krzysztof Penderecki — whose music has been gathered into a week-long Focus Festival to be rehearsed, discussed and performed by BW students and faculty. Begun in 1984 by Loris Chobanian and Elinore Barber, the festival was revived this year by BW composer-in-residence Clint Needham, who chose Theofanidis as the person to celebrate.

The festival culminated in a Friday evening concert by student chamber ensembles, a Saturday evening concert by the Motet Choir, Symphonic Wind Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra and a Sunday afternoon concert by faculty chamber ensembles. I “attended” the Saturday concert via BW’s new streaming service — along with fifty-some fellow viewers — and heard the Sunday performance live.

Unlike some of the thornier composers in Focus Festival history, Christopher Theofanidis makes friends quite easily through his music — a remarkable trait because there’s nothing facile or consciously ingratiating about his musical style. [Read more…]

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