ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad
Ad

BlueWater: violinist Jinjoo Cho to play the Tchaikovsky Concerto

by

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.

[Read more…]

Arts Renaissance Tremont turns twenty-nine this season

by

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.”

[Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra at The Temple-Tifereth Israel (Sep. 15)

by

by Robert Rollin

Last Sunday afternoon, September 15, the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, under conductor and artistic director Daniel Meyer, opened its season with an imaginatively varied concert at The Temple-Tifereth Israel. Amitai Vardi was featured in Srul Irving Glick’s The Klezmer’s Wedding, a delightful one-movement piece for clarinet and string orchestra.

[Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra tells tales at Plymouth (May 4)

by

by David Kulma

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra entered an exciting second era with the final concert of its 9th season on Saturday, May 4 at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. Last month, conductor Daniel Meyer was named the orchestra’s artistic director, so now this important Northeast Ohio institution can chart a course into its second decade.

[Read more…]

Daniel Meyer to lead his first BlueWater concert as Artistic Director

by

by Jarrett Hoffman

“We’re definitely talking about some return visits and some more intensive work together.”

That’s what conductor Daniel Meyer told me over the phone in early April after I asked him about further engagements with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra in the seasons to come.

And I can only assume that he was winking when he said it. Less than two weeks later, on April 22, Meyer was announced as the ensemble’s new Artistic Director and Conductor, succeeding founder Carlton Woods, who passed away in 2017.

He will lead his first concert as Music Director on Saturday, May 4 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights (more on that program in a bit). He already knows the players well, having appeared as guest conductor with BlueWater several times over the past few seasons.

And he seems to genuinely love the orchestra. “I took to them right away,” he told me. [Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra at Plymouth Church (Feb. 2)

by

by Nicholas Stevens

Variety can be the salvation or the undoing of a concert. A century and a half ago, most Americans would have heard what we now think of as the bedrock repertoire of the classical tradition in bewildering shows that often included comedy and drama as well. In recent decades, however, even diversity of historical period and musical style — let alone type of entertainment — has become optional, rather than expected. In a recent concert led by Daniel Meyer, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra successfully embraced stylistic pluralism, mixing new music and a rarity with standard audience favorites.

[Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra: fifteen minutes with Daniel Meyer

by

by Daniel Hathaway

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra will present music by Osvaldo Golijov, Anton Bruckner, Antonio Vivaldi, and Franz Schubert in concerts this weekend at Rocky River Presbyterian Church (Friday, February 1) and Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights (Saturday, February 2), both at 7:30 pm.

I reached conductor Daniel Meyer on the road between his home in Pittsburgh and one of his regular podium positions in Erie, where he was rehearsing for a concert last weekend with the Erie Philharmonic. I started by congratulating him on his recent appointment as conductor of the Lakeside Symphony.

Daniel Meyer: I’ve been looking for a summer home for a while. My family loves Lakeside, and I’m very excited to have the opportunity to work there. One promising thing is its collaborative possibilities. We’re looking to expand what we do.

DH: Besides Erie, what other conducting positions do you hold down at the moment?

DM: I also conduct the Westmoreland Symphony just outside of Pittsburgh. I just got back from a guest appearance in Silicon Valley with the former San José Symphony. [Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra with Chang & Neubert (Nov. 10)

by

by Nicholas Stevens

That time of year has come: lawns turn white with snow as day arrives late, puddles freeze over when night comes early, and Northeast Ohioans glance outside with the knowledge that this is only the beginning. In this season, when the world outside seems to reject us with what feels like personal hostility, it takes real incentives to lure listeners to concert halls. Fortunately, the area offers many such tempting opportunities, and last weekend, a program by BlueWater Chamber Orchestra made the trip outside well worth it. [Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra: 15 minutes with oboist Martin Neubert

by

by Jarrett Hoffman

If you’ve been to an orchestra concert in the area over the last 26 years, you’ve probably heard Martin Neubert’s playing.

Since receiving his master’s from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1992, the oboist has become a mainstay of the region’s music scene. He’s principal of the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, Warren Philharmonic, and Opera Western Reserve, and second in the Cleveland Pops Orchestra and Cleveland Chamber Symphony. On top of that, he’s substituted with The Cleveland Orchestra, and performed with the symphonies of Akron, Canton, and Youngstown.

In short, he’s been around.

This weekend, Neubert will step out from the BlueWater ranks to perform as soloist, joining guest conductor Tiffany Chang for her debut with the Orchestra. The program is titled “Opulent Oboe and Scintillating Symphony” — the opulence coming from German-American composer Lukas Foss’s Concerto, the scintillation from Haydn’s Symphony No. 103 in E-flat, “Drumroll.” Apologies to Beethoven for missing out on the fun adjectives, but his Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43 should make for a strong opener.

[Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra at the Breen Center (Sept. 16)

by

by Nicholas Stevens

Sometimes, the concerts that a music-lover remembers best revolve around isolated points of interest: a moving phrase here, a glowing chord there, the consistent verve of one player over the course of an evening. However, some performances contain such long successions of bright points that a pattern forms, and the entire experience becomes one protracted highlight. When the musicians of BlueWater Chamber Orchestra opened their ninth season last weekend, it became difficult to miss the forest for the trees: delightful moments kept arriving. [Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us