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BlueWater Chamber Orchestra: 15 minutes with oboist Martin Neubert

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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)

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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…]

BlueWater to feature Richard King in “All Hail the Horn” on Sept. 16

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Friendships: each one is different, based around everything from a mutual career to telling weird jokes. Occasionally both of those come into play, as with hornist Joseph Leutgeb and one pretty famous composer. “Wolfgang Amadé Mozart takes pity on Leutgeb, ass, ox, and simpleton, at Vienna, 27 March 1783,” Mozart wrote on the autograph of the Concerto No. 2 in E-flat, K. 417, one of several works he wrote for the hornist.

Whatever the nature of that bond, hornists around the world are grateful for it, including Cleveland Orchestra fourth hornist Richard King. “Mozart’s my favorite composer, and that we horn players happen to have multiple works by him is just wonderful — and lucky,” King said during a recent phone call. “If Mozart’s friend had played the trumpet, then we might not have anything.”

King will take on Mozart’s Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 during the aptly titled “All Hail the Horn,” BlueWater Chamber Orchestra’s first concert of its ninth season. Conductor Daniel Meyer will lead the performance at the Breen Center in Ohio City on Sunday, September 16 at 3:00 pm. The program will also include Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks chamber concerto and Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo, featuring mezzo-soprano Corrie Stallings. “I’ve been in the audience before and I’m a big fan of this group, so it’s great to have this opportunity,” King said.

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Cleveland Chamber Choir & BlueWater Chamber Orchestra (May 19)

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by Timothy Robson

CCC First BaptistThe Cleveland Chamber Choir and BlueWater Chamber Orchestra combined forces under Choir conductor Scott MacPherson to play the first of two weekend concerts on Saturday, May 19 at First Baptist Church of Greater Cleveland.

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BlueWater + Cleveland Chamber Choir: the phone call from Carlton Woods to Scott MacPherson

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Scott MacPherson_2016Last year, Carlton Woods was scheduled to conduct the first joint performance between his BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Scott MacPherson’s Cleveland Chamber Choir. But when Woods fell ill, he called MacPherson (left), who stepped in to lead that concert — the premiere of Sam Guarnaccia’s Emergent Universe Oratorio at the Maltz Performing Arts Center.

Another phone call came with worse news. “Carlton was trying to set up his season this year for BlueWater,” MacPherson said during a recent interview, “because he knew he wasn’t going to live to see the day.”

Woods asked MacPherson if he would lead another collaboration between the two chamber ensembles. The BlueWater founder requested two selections for chorus and orchestra, and one for orchestra alone — and that’s what MacPherson will deliver on two dates this weekend.

On Saturday, May 19 at 7:30 pm at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights, then on Sunday, May 20 at 3:00 pm at Baldwin Wallace University’s Gamble Auditorium, MacPherson will lead BlueWater and his own Cleveland Chamber Choir in “Vocal Verve.” [Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra at Plymouth Church (Feb. 3)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Meyer-DanielBlueWater Chamber Orchestra’s “Strings After Sundown” program at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights on Saturday, February 3 was advertised — as late as the afternoon before in an email blast — as a conductor-less performance to be led by concertmaster Kenneth Johnston. Instead, the audience was greeted by a program insert noting that the concert would be conducted by Erie Philharmonic music director Daniel Meyer. [Read more…]

Ken Johnston to multi-task as concertmaster and conductor with BlueWater on Saturday

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by Daniel Hathaway

JohnstonSometime between the unfortunate episode when Jean Baptiste Lully, leading the Paris Opera orchestra by pounding on the floor with a staff, mortally wounded himself in the foot, and the time when dedicated conductors began waving pointed sticks around in front of their ensembles, concertmasters routinely led orchestras while simultaneously playing their violins.

That’s exactly the role that BlueWater Chamber Orchestra concertmaster Ken Johnston will be reviving this Saturday evening when he presides over an 8:00 pm program of music by Mozart, Dvořák, and Schoenberg at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights.

We reached Johnston, who also serves as concertmaster of the Erie Philharmonic, to ask how he was preparing for this weekend’s assignment, and what he thought the challenges might be. [Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra with Meyer & Pedersen (Nov. 11)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Meyer-DanielConductor Daniel Meyer and soprano Laura Pederson were the featured guests for the first of two weekend concerts by BlueWater Chamber Orchestra on Saturday, November 11 at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. The Saturday performance was a ticketed event, while a repeat performance the following afternoon at Pilgrim Church in Tremont was free, thanks to Cuyahoga Arts and Culture — perhaps accounting for a rather slim audience on Saturday. [Read more…]

Conductor Daniel Meyer and soprano Laura Pedersen join BlueWater for “Lush Autumn Musings”

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Meyer-Daniel“When I put together a program, I look for interesting threads that connect the pieces, but I also look at how the pieces resonate with me,” Daniel Meyer, music director of the Asheville Symphony and Erie Philharmonic, said in a recent conversation. “I’m going to be interpreting them, putting my stamp on them, and standing in front of incredibly trained musicians who will want to know my opinion, so it’s important that I have a personal connection to the works.”

On Saturday, November 11 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra’s “Lush Autumn Musings” brings together guest conductor Daniel Meyer and soprano Laura Pedersen in Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, bookended by Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin and Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 2 in B-flat.

[Read more…]

BlueWater Chamber Orchestra at the Breen with Mark Kosower & Ken Johnston (Sep. 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

BluewaterBreenStageAfter BlueWater Chamber Orchestra founder Carlton Woods’ untimely death in February, the Orchestra decided to continue with his plans for 2017-2018, calling on guest conductors and its own concertmaster to lead the new season’s programs. On Sunday afternoon, September 17 at the Breen Center in Ohio City, Octavio Más-Arocas led the ensemble in “The Captivating Cello,” and the captivating cellist was Cleveland Orchestra principal Mark Kosower. [Read more…]

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