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The Cleveland Orchestra’s Messiah: a conversation with soprano Liv Redpath

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By Mike Telin

“One of my favorite things to do is to sing with the Cleveland Orchestra,” soprano Liv Redpath said during a telephone conversation. “There’s really no better orchestra — it’s kind of freakish how great they are.”

On Thursday, December 4 at 7:30 at Severance Music Center, Redpath will join her solo quartet colleagues — countertenor Tim Mead, tenor Andrew Haji, and bass-baritone Philippe Sly — when Bernard Labadie leads The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus in Handel’s Messiah. The program will be repeated on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm. Tickets are available online.

Redpath looks forward to once again working with Labadie, who she said brings a great balance to classical and Baroque music. “Bernard has a huge heart and passion for this music and making it alive. But behind that is a deep knowledge of the structure that makes the music tick like a really beautiful Swiss clock. I’m excited to once again sing with The Cleveland Orchestra, but I have not performed with them together with Bernard, so that’s going to be a treat.”

[Read more…]

Soloists shine in Cleveland Orchestra’s Bach Easter Oratorio, Magnificat and more (Apr. 17)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — On Thursday, April 17, at Severance Music Center, Canadian guest conductor Bernard Labadie led The Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and four splendid soloists in two of J.S. Bach’s most exultant sacred works — the dramatic Easter Oratorio, and his Magnificat. Bach’s festive Sinfonia from his Cantata 29 completed the program.

Reworked from a secular cantata for a patron’s birthday, Bach’s Easter Oratorio is a less overtly theatrical work than the composer’s Passions. Its uncomplicated story describes the moment that Mary Magdalene (mezzo-soprano Adèle Charvet), Mary of Cleophas (soprano Joélle Harvey) and the apostles Peter (tenor Andrew Haji) and John (bass-baritone Gordon Bintner) come to the tomb of Jesus and find it empty.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: fifteen minutes with tenor Andrew Haji

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by Mike Telin

The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus will appropriately mark Easter weekend with three performances of Johann Sebastian Bach’s dramatic Easter Oratorio led by guest conductor Bernard Labadie on Thursday, April 17 and Friday, April 18 at 7:30 pm and Saturday, April 19 at 8 pm in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center. Tickets are available online.

Bach re-purposed a secular cantata to create his narrative of the resurrection of Jesus in 1725. Labadie will pair the Easter Oratorio on these programs with Bach’s Magnificat, a lovely (and unique for Bach) setting of the song Mary sang after learning she would bear Jesus, as reported in the Gospel of Luke.

[Read more…]

Many sides of Mozart with Labadie and The Cleveland Orchestra (Apr. 20)

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by Peter Feher

Mozart was the main event at Severance Music Center on April 20, but The Cleveland Orchestra gave only a teaser of what it can do with this great composer.

Chalk it up to the small and generally intimate scale of the performance. Guest conductor Bernard Labadie, a specialist in 18th-century repertoire, led the Orchestra — pared down to period-ensemble numbers — in half a dozen Mozart pieces, many of them excerpts from longer works. You could think of the program as a preview for next season here in Cleveland, which opens with a soundtrack of the composer’s greatest hits (accompanying the film Amadeus live in concert) and closes with a production of The Magic Flute.

On Thursday, everything was building to Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 (“Jupiter”). [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Labadie and Faust (Feb. 15)

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by Daniel Hathaway

FAUST-IsabelleMusical chameleon that it can be, The Cleveland Orchestra put itself completely in the hands of Montréal-based early music specialist Bernard Labadie and German violinist Isabelle Faust on Thursday evening, February 15, producing fresh and insightful versions of standard works by Mendelssohn and Mozart, and a tantalizing taste of the work of a little-known Parisian composer of the Classical era. [Read more…]

T.G.I.F. — Summers@Severance with The Cleveland Orchestra (Aug. 12)

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by Nicholas Jones

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Some music makes you yearn; some makes you cry; some makes you think. And some music just makes you glad to be alive. At The Cleveland Orchestra’s final Summers@Severance concert of the season last Friday, August 12, joy radiated from just about every aspect of the music.

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Looking forward to the summer season: a conversation with Cleveland Orchestra artistic administrator Ilya Gidalevich

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by Mike Telin

Blossom-Lawn-071115Now that summer is officially upon us, it’s time to locate the picnic basket, fill it with your favorite summer foods, and head to the Cuyahoga National Park with family and friends to enjoy a Cleveland Orchestra concert at Blossom Music Center. And, if anyone in your vehicle is under the age of 18, their seat on the lawn is free.

If you can’t make it to Blossom, the Orchestra has scheduled three early Friday evening concerts in its Summers@Severance series. Special “happy hour” drink prices will be offered one hour prior to each concert on Severance Hall’s front terrace. Attendees are encouraged to arrive early and enjoy the outdoor delights of University Circle.

“As usual the summer season is a mix of musical genres and artists,” Cleveland Orchestra artistic administrator Ilya Gidalevich said during a recent telephone conversation. [Read more…]

Review: Akron Symphony with Jeannette Sorrell (February 9)

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by Daniel Hathaway

FiftySORRELL-Jeannette years ago, if you heard Handel’s famous Water Music or Music for the Royal Fireworks played by a symphony orchestra, it would probably have been in a sumptuous reorchestration by Sir Hamilton Harty, longtime conductor of the Hallé Orchestra. In the meantime, the historical performance movement arose and baroque music all but vanished from symphonic concerts. Now early music specialists are being invited to work with “traditional” orchestras to restore to their programs repertory written before, say, 1800 and to play it in original orchestrations in something approaching the style to which it was originally accustomed. And, of course, using “modern” instruments.

The Cleveland Orchestra has already successfully done this by inviting Bernard Labadie and Ton Koopman to guest conduct the ensemble. Last Saturday evening at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron, the Akron Symphony welcomed Apollo’s Fire founder and artistic director Jeannette Sorrell to lead music by J.S. Bach and Handel with the assistance of AF’s concertmaster Olivier Brault. As usual for these occasions, the strings were reduced to chamber orchestra proportions to obtain a leaner, lither sound. [Read more…]

‘Royal Trumpets and Drums’ at Severance: a conversation with conductor Bernard Labadie

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Canadian condutor Bernard Labadie conducts the Cleveland Orchestra in Rameau, Neruda and Handel this weekend (April 29-May 2). We reached him in Quebec City to talk about his debut with the Orchestra.

Mike Telin: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk and congratulations on all of your successes during the past few months.

Bernard Labadie: Thank you very much, and it has been a very good year.

MT:  In addition, you will be making your Cleveland Orchestra debut next week.

BL: Yes, absolutely. It is quite exciting actually.

MT: You also made your Metropolitan Opera debut this season.

BL: Yes and I also did my Concertgebouw debut as well.

MT: We must not forget the rave reviews you received for your New York performances of Handel’s ‘Messiah’ and the Bach ‘Christmas Oratorio’ with Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Quebec.

BL: Yes, the performances went very well.

MT: Regarding the program for next week, I see you are doing Handel’s ‘Water Music’. Will that be the complete or just one or two of the suites.

BL: We’ll be doing all three suites, so that will be the whole second half. It is actually a very substantial second half.

MT: The first half will be the Neruda ‘Trumpet Concerto’ with Michael Sachs as well as your own arrangement of a suite from Rameau’s opera ‘Dardanus’. Can you tell me a little bit about the Rameau? [Read more…]

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