Barbara Bachtell Archives - Cleveland Classical

Broadway School of Music & the Arts: Brass & Bubbly — and a farewell

May 8, 2025 by Mike Telin

by Mike Telin

Since 1983, the Broadway School of Music & the Arts has been providing the Slavic Village neighborhood with one-on-one instrumental and voice lessons, with a focus on community arts education and outreach.

On Friday, May 9 at The Darl Center for the Arts, you can help support the school’s activities by attending Brass & Bubbly. The evening will feature a 7:30 pm concert by the Factory Seconds Brass Trio, made up of Cleveland Orchestra members Jack Sutte (trumpet), Richard Stout (trombone), and Richard King (horn). The program will include music by Jacques Arcadelt, J.S. Bach, Arthur Frackenpohl, Maurice Bardin, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Amy Beach, and Joel Love.

Before and after the concert guests are invited to tour The Darl Center’s personal art collection of owner Darl Schaaf. The event will also celebrate the retirement of Barbara Bachtell, BSMA’s long-time executive director. Click here for tickets and more information.

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Broadway School of Music and the Arts plans its annual benefit concert at Trinity Commons on May 30

May 20, 2014 by Special to ClevelandClassical.com

by Mike Telin

The Broadway School of Music and the Arts (BSMA) will present Old World/New World: An Intimate Evening of Chamber Music, on Friday, May 30 beginning at 7:00 pm at Trinity Commons in downtown Cleveland. This annual benefit supports BSMA’s music and arts instruction and programming for underserved children and adults.

Hosted by WCLV 104.9 FM’s Bill O’Connell, the evening features Dvorak’s Drobnosti Op. 75 and Quintet in E-flat Major Op. 97 as well as Mark O’Connor’s folk-inspired FC’s Jig performed by Cleveland Orchestra members Katherine Bormann, Elayna Duitman and Sae Shiragami violins; Lisa Boyko and Lembi Veskimets violas; and Bryan Dumm and Alan Harrell cellos. Tickets are available on the BSMA website or by telephone at 216.641.0630.

“The Student Financial Aid Fund is a very important piece of what we do at the school,” BSMA executive director Barbara Bachtell said during a recent conversation in her office at the school. “Over the past 10 years we have given out roughly $75,000 in tuition assistance. We try to keep our rates low, but there are still families who cannot afford them.” Currently, 30-minute individual lessons range from $16.20 to $18.00. [Read more…]

Labadie leads fresh-sounding performance of Messiah with Cleveland Orchestra, Chorus and solo quartet (Dec. 4)

By Daniel Hathaway|Cleveland Classical

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio – On Thursday evening at Severance Music Center, guest conductor Bernard Labadie did far more than just hold the performance of Messiah by the Cleveland Orchestra, Chorus and solo quartet together, he led a surgically clean account of George Frideric Handel’s 1741 oratorio.

Like a London cabbie, Labadie knew all the available highways and byways for the two-hour musical journey and pointed out interesting sights we might otherwise have missed.

And to change metaphors, like a skilled restorer he gently removed layers of interpretive grime that has accumulated over the years from Handel’s score, allowing us to hear it with fresh ears. He also tucked in some surprises of his own for those of us who thought we knew the piece and how it should go.

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CityMusic Cleveland: Three Eras, One Conversation (Dec. 5)

by Kevin McLaughlin

“We love coming here!” CityMusic Cleveland’s managing director Henry Peyrebrune said in his opening remarks on Friday at St. Noel Catholic Church. Open and modern and warmly lit, St. Noel proved a welcoming setting for December 5th’s well-attended concert. Many pews had been claimed early, and finding a seat required a bit of roaming. As always with CityMusic, admission was free, with only a suggested ticket price and friendly greeters at the door.

The program, titled Three Eras, One Conversation (although I only counted two) traced a through-line from Mozart to Haydn to Stravinsky, with conductor James Feddeck clarifying the connections across style and time.

[Read on…]

Les Délices’ elaborate, entertaining Aesop Project (Nov. 22)

by Peter Feher

In the 1670s, Louis XIV commissioned a series of 39 fountains for the Gardens of Versailles, each modeled on a story from Aesop’s Fables and intended for the education of the king’s young son, the Dauphin.

The Aesop Project, the latest community offering from Les Délices and artistic director Debra Nagy, is slightly less ornate but just as inspired. Cleveland’s ever-resourceful period chamber ensemble partnered with local puppeteers and poets for this family-friendly program teaching music and morals.

After touring Northeast Ohio schools earlier in the week, the project received a public performance at the CMA Community Arts Center on Saturday morning, November 22. Children, parents, and committed patrons of early music sat down for the 35-minute show, surrounded by spectacular displays of costumes and props from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s annual Parade the Circle celebration.

[Read on…]

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