by Mike Telin
“I chose the pieces on this program because they belong to a part of the repertoire that was written more for the purpose of entertaining,” conductor Raphael Jiménez said of his upcoming BlueWater Chamber Orchestra program. “I did that on purpose — it’s the middle of winter, and what better way to spend a wintery night than listening to beautiful music.” [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Carlton Woods and BlueWater Chamber Orchestra had a fine time celebrating the Halloween weekend in their concert at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights on Saturday evening. The featured work on the program was Jon Deak’s The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, an action-packed concerto for string quartet and orchestra, with narration read by WCLV president Robert Contrad. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
It’s that time of year when jack-o-lanterns are seen illuminating front porches, and scary tales of ghosts and goblins are told. One of those tales is “The Headless Horseman,” which has been popularized in Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” On Saturday, November 1 at 7:30 pm in Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, Carlton R. Woods will lead the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra in Jon Deak’s Concerto for String Quartet, Narrator and Orchestra, The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, featuring violinists Kenneth Johnston and Charles Morey, violist Kirsten Docter, cellist Bryan Dumm and narrator Robert Conrad. [Read more…]
The BlueWater Chamber Orchestra will alternate between the Breen Center at St. Ignatius High School in Ohio City and Plymouth Church UCC in Shaker Heights for its four Saturday evening concerts in 2014-2015. All the performances will begin at 7:30 pm, last 75 minutes and are to be presented without intermission. Here is the schedule:
September 6 — Carlton R. Woods, conducting, with Zsolt Bognár, piano (pictured). Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 and Piano Concerto No. 1. Breen Center, St. Ignatius High School, 2008 W. 30th at Lorain, Cleveland.
November 1 — Carlton R. Woods, conducting, with Kenneth Johnston, violin, Charles Morey, violin, Kirsten Docter, viola & Bryan Dumm, cello & Robert Conrad, narrator. Jon Deak’s Concerto for String Quartet, Narrator and Orchestra, “The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow,” Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun arr. Benno Sachs & Respighi’s Trittico Botticelliano. Plymouth Church, 2860 Coventry Rd., Shaker Hts.
February 28 — Raphael Jiménez, guest conductor. Fauré’s Pavane and Brahms’s Serenade No. 1 in D. Breen Center, St. Ignatius High School.
May 9 — Carlton R. Woods, conducting, with Ken Wadenpfuhl, French horn & George Sakakeeny, bassoon. Dukas’s Villanelle, Libby Larsen’s full moon in the city & Schubert’s Symphony No. 3. Plymouth Church.
by Guytano Parks
BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, conducted by founder and Artistic Director Carlton R. Woods presented an enlightening and entertaining program of works by John Corigliano, Carl Maria von Weber, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Peter Maxwell Davies on Saturday evening at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. The featured soloists were Amitai Vardi, principal clarinet of BWCO, and fifteen year-old St. Ignatius High School sophomore Jieming Tang, violin, who made his orchestral debut on this occasion.
Opening the program was Corigliano’s Voyages for Strings, an instrumental version of an a cappella choral work that was a setting of Baudelaire’s L’Invitation au voyage. Plymouth Church proved to be the ideal space for this sensual music — beautifully played with wondrous blend and balance — to breathe and soar. Points of resolution were heavenly as the players mused and ambled through Corigliano’s sometimes ambiguous harmonic territory.
Jieming Tang impressed with his lovely, lyrical playing of Beethoven’s Romance No. 2, Op. 50. Projecting clearly and effortlessly above the orchestra at all times, his tone was sweet and clear in the upper register and deep and rich in the lower. Beethoven’s well-crafted piece benefitted from Mr. Tang’s expressive delivery of every detail, and Woods and the orchestra gave him fine and graceful support. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“I’m very excited,” says 16 year old violinist Jieming Tang. “It’s my first time ever to play with an orchestra.” On Saturday, November 16 at 7:30 pm in Plymouth Church, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Carlton Woods presents a concert that features Jieming Tang in Beethoven’s Romanze No. 2. The program also includes Weber’s Concertino with clarinetist Amitai Vardi, along with works by Peter Maxwell Davies, John Corigliano and Felix Mendelssohn.
Jieming Tang was born in 1997 in Hefei, China and began his violin studies at age three. When he was eight, he began to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, and entered the Conservatory’s pre-college division the following year. In April 2010, Tang came to the United States to be part of the Junior Young Artist Program of the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Tang was asked by BlueWater to choose one of the two Beethoven Romanzes and he chose No. 2 because he has performed it several times before with piano. “I’m glad I picked this one because right now there are so many things going on. I can’t imagine if I would have had to learn a new piece.” [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Apparently eager to be the first ensemble out of the gate at the beginning of the new concert year, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra opened its fourth season at the Breen Center on Saturday evening with a renewed commitment to musicians raised, trained or living in Cleveland and offered a couple of endearing innovations in concert presentation.
The excellent concert featured Samuel Barber’s violin concerto with Cleveland-born Diana Cohen in the solo role. It also turned the time-honored order of overture-concerto-symphony a bit inside-out, and was played without intermission. The performance also began at 7:30 — early for a Saturday night performance — and ended by 8:45 when the evening was still young for an unhurried post-performance meal.
Cohen, who currently serves as concertmaster for Canada’s Calgary Symphony, has recently deepened her ongoing Cleveland connections by founding ChamberFest Cleveland with her father, Cleveland Orchestra principal clarinetist Franklin Cohen. Those who have heard her play so eloquently during the first two seasons of that series had the opportunity to experience her artistry as a concerto player at the end of Saturday evening’s program, a role in which she proved to be equally impressive. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
While associate conductor Neil Mueller aptly chose to title last weekend’s BlueWater Chamber Orchestra concert Baroque Reverberations, Mueller could have also appropriately named it “the many sides of Kenneth Cooper.” On Saturday, May 4th in Plymouth Church, the celebrated American harpsichordist and conductor returned to Cleveland for the first time since he was featured in multiple concerts with the Ohio Chamber Orchestra several years ago — and hopefully a return visit will not take nearly as long. Even better if that visit would reunite him with Mueller and the talented BlueWater players.
The concert featured music of the early 18th century, Handel’s Concerto No. 15 in d minor for harpsichord and strings, with Cooper in the role of soloist, and Bach’s Orchestra Suite No. 3 in D, where he displayed his astute continuo playing skills. Music from the 20th century also made an appearance with de Falla’s Concerto for harpsichord, flute, oboe, clarinet, violin and cello. Here Cooper became a virtuoso chamber musician. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The celebrated American harpsichordist and conductor Kenneth Cooper will revisit Cleveland this weekend for the first time since he was featured in multiple concerts with the Ohio Chamber Orchestra several years ago. On Saturday, May 4 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church, Cooper will play Manuel de Falla’s Concerto for harpsichord, flute, oboe, clarinet, violin and cello and Handel’s Concerto No. 15 in d minor for harpsichord and strings with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra under the baton of its assistant conductor, Neil Mueller. Also on the program: Grieg’s Holberg Suite and J.S. Bach’s Orchestra Suite No. 3 in D.
Cooper began his harpsichord studies with Sylvia Marlowe, one of the modern champions of the instrument, who was attracted to the instrument through concerts given by Wanda Landowska when Marlowe was studying with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Cooper eventually succeeded her at the Mannes College of Music and now holds posts at Columbia University and the Manhattan School of Music where he chairs the harpsichord department and directs the Baroque Aria Ensemble. He serves as music director of the Berkshire Bach Ensemble and appears regularly with Paula Robison at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as on such series as the Yale-Norfolk Summer Chamber Music Festival and Music at Menlo.
His forty-year career as a specialist in eighteenth-century music has yielded many recordings of the Baroque masterworks as well as a wide range of other music including ragtime, American music, documentary film soundtracks and even a video game.
We reached Kenneth Cooper at his home in New York after a busy week of opera conducting to ask about his forthcoming concert in Cleveland. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
On Sunday afternoon, September 12, a new ensemble and a new venue made their joint orchestral debut as the Blue Water Chamber Orchestra played its first concert under its founder and conductor Carlton R. Woods at St. Ignatius High School’s Breen Center in Ohio City.
Mr. Woods chose a substantial menu of attractive chamber orchestra works for Blue Water’s first outing: Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, Hanson’s Serenade for Flute, Harp and Strings, Beethoven’s Romance in F for violin and orchestra, Elgar’s Serenade for Strings and Ginastera’s Variaciones Concertantes — one piece each from France, the US, Austria, England and Argentina that required the orchestra to quickly adapt between national styles. [Read more…]