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Violinist Jinjoo Cho: Barber with BlueWater & writing a book

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Following up on her Tchaikovsky Concerto performance four years ago, violinist Jinjoo Cho will make a return appearance with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra on Friday, November 17 at 7:30 pm at Church of the Covenant.

This time, the first prize winner of the 2014 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis will focus on the Concerto of Samuel Barber — part of an all-American program led by Daniel Meyer that will also include Cindy McTee’s Adagio for String Orchestra and Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring: Suite for Full Orchestra. Pay-what-you-wish tickets are available here. [Read more…]

“Viva Latina!” —
BlueWater Chamber Orchestra (Mar. 4) 

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Accordionist Hanzhi Wang held the Church of the Covenant audience in thrall on March 4 as she demonstrated mastery of the wild marvel that is her instrument in a performance of Piazzolla’s Bandoneon Concerto. The BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and conductor Daniel Meyer provided able accompaniment there, as well as lovely accounts of works by Arriaga and Copland in this Latin-tinged program.

The Symphony in D by Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, written in 1825 when the composer was just seventeen, is cast in the Haydn-Mozart mold. The performance revealed a deftly crafted work — exciting, tuneful, and blustery. After the Haydnesque slow introduction that prepares the listener for a D-major Allegro, the orchestra leaned into the unexpected d-minor with stormy energy and dynamic contrasts. Meyer kept fast tempos under control, battling acoustically challenging circumstances — distinctions of timbre and precision of attacks were frequently lost in the cavernous space.

[Read more…]

“Heaven and Earth” at the Church of the Covenant (Oct. 8)

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by Mike Telin

Wonderful things can happen when two accomplished ensembles collaborate. Such was the case on Saturday, October 8, when the Cleveland Chamber Choir and the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra joined forces at the Church of the Covenant in a program titled “Heaven and Earth.” The result was spectacular.

The program featured Gwyneth Walker’s The Golden Harp (1999) and Beethoven’s Mass in C. At first glance the two works appear to have little in common: Walker sets the words of Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore and Beethoven sets the text of the Latin mass. Still, the colorful, expressive music in each provides a directness to the text that takes the listener on an emotional journey.

[Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra 
& Cleveland Chamber Choir — 
together again at last 

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by Mike Telin 

We all know that the pandemic forced many performing arts organizations to put their plans on hold. Case in point, the collaboration between BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and the Cleveland Chamber Choir that was scheduled for May of 2020. 

Now, after a long wait, the two ensembles will come together on Saturday, October 8 at 7:30 pm at the Church of the Covenant for a performance of Beethoven’s Mass in C and American composer Gwyneth Walker’s emotionally intense The Golden Harp, featuring Ideastream Public Media’s John Mills as narrator. A pre-concert talk will be presented by Oberlin Conservatory musicologist Charles Edward McGuire 30 minutes before the performance. The concert is free.

The performance will be under the direction of both Gregory Ristow, Associate Professor of Conducting and Director of Vocal Ensembles at Oberlin, and Daniel Meyer, Artistic Director of BlueWater.

I caught up with Ristow and Meyer via Zoom and began by asking them how they came to pair the Walker with the Beethoven.

[Read more…]

Jonathan Moyer & BlueWater in “Fantastical Machines” concert (Mar. 5)

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by Daniel Hathaway

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra’s concert at the Church of the Covenant on Saturday evening, March 5 checked all the boxes for a memorable concert experience.

It lasted 80 minutes and nixed an intermission, developed a clever theme through unusual repertoire (although it didn’t take itself too seriously there), and featured an engaging soloist in organist Jonathan Moyer as well as a communicative conductor in Daniel Meyer, both of whom spoke briefly and informatively without simply recycling program notes.

[Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra: “Exploration CLE” at the Breen (Nov. 20)

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by Daniel Hathaway

One of the latest instrumental ensembles to announce a new season of concerts, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra began 2021-2022 with an imaginative program on November 20 at the Breen Center at St. Ignatius High School in Ohio City. The time was unusual — Saturday afternoon at 3:00 pm.

Music director and conductor Daniel Meyer built his playlist around Cleveland themes and scenes. “Exploration CLE” made use of engaging selections from the classical canon and beyond that celebrated “what makes Cleveland so special.” Happily, he and his musicians avoided constructing a visual slide show, choosing to let the music speak for itself. [Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra: “Honor, Hope, and Gratitude”

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by Daniel Hathaway

In lieu of moving something resembling a normal season of concerts online, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra offered its patrons a beautifully produced video filmed at the Maltz Performing Arts Center at CWRU that debuted on May 27.

Subtitled “Tender reflections on a challenging year,” the program, curated by artistic director Daniel Meyer and released on the OurConcerts.live platform, offered nine soothing miniatures or excerpts from larger works, all for strings alone. As Meyer told us in an interview, “Everything on this program is cut from the same cloth, and meant to be gentle, placid, and consoling.” [Read more…]

Meyer crafts special online concert for BlueWater Chamber Orchestra

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by Daniel Hathaway

In a normal season (remember those?), Daniel Meyer would describe his job as music director and conductor of the Erie Symphony, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, and the Lakeside Symphony. Since COVID hit, things have changed. “I’ve apparently become a film producer,” he told me in a recent telephone conversation. “That’s a skill set I didn’t know I had before the pandemic, but it’s helped justify our existence.”

Having already established a good relationship with Erie’s public radio and television stations, Meyer and the Symphony leapt at the invitation to produce eight hour-long programs over the course of the season in lieu of in-person concerts. “That forced us to get creative and explore some very interesting repertoire.” [Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra builds bridges with Verb Ballets

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by Daniel Hathaway

A chance meeting at Lakeside — where Verb Ballets was performing and BlueWater Chamber Orchestra artistic director Daniel Meyer was auditioning for a job — has resulted in the first collaboration between the two organizations. Although the original idea was for an in-person performance, the pandemic forced the project online.

Not such a bad thing, as it turns out. “Building Bridges Together,” which debuted as a video production on November 21, combined the strengths of two fine Cleveland performing arts organizations in a beautifully edited virtual event — bringing them into the same performing space for the first time through digital means. [Read more…]

BlueWater & Verb Ballets collaborate — at a distance

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by Daniel Hathaway

On Saturday, November 21, two Cleveland institutions will come together in a collaborative project without ever having been in the same room.

“Building Bridges Together” is a joint project between BlueWater Chamber Orchestra (Daniel Meyer, artistic director) and Verb Ballets (Margaret Carlson and Richard Dickinson, artistic directors). The program includes performances of Heinz Poll’s Adagio for Two Dancers, set to a famous piece attributed to Albinoni, and Michael Escovedo’s Broken Bridges, choreographed to Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony. In between, BlueWater will play Anton Webern’s Langsamer Satz.

The program, pre-recorded at the Shore Cultural Center in Euclid, will debut at 7:30 pm on November 21 and remain available to ticket holders for 24 hours.

Speaking from his home in Pittsburgh, Daniel Meyer, who also conducts Pennsylvania’s Erie Philharmonic and Westmoreland Symphony, as well as Ohio’s summertime Lakeside Symphony, said that the idea of working with a dance company came to him when he was auditioning for the Lakeside job. “That happened to be the same weekend Verb was in residence at Lakeside, and I was deeply impressed,” he said. “If I got hired, I definitely wanted to continue the tradition of working with this group.” [Read more…]

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