by Timothy Robson
Barely a square inch of space remained on the lawn, and the Blossom Music Center pavilion was packed on a clear, cool Saturday evening, September 3, for the annual movie night at Blossom. This season’s offering was Steven Spielberg’s 1981 blockbuster Raiders of the Lost Ark, starring Harrison Ford as the intrepid archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones, with Karen Allen as his sometimes girlfriend Marion, and a host of well-known character actors. [Read more…]
by Alexandra A. Vago
What a spectacular concert on Saturday, July 30 at Blossom Music Center. The concert featured performances by the Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra and The Cleveland Orchestra, culminating in a side-by-side performance. It was a celebration of the Kent/Blossom Music Festival, the 50-year partnership between Kent State University and The Cleveland Orchestra. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin & Daniel Hathaway
On Saturday afternoon, June 25, the Cleveland Museum of Art continued its centenary celebration with musical events commemorating the Summer Solstice. At 3:00 pm in the Ames Family Atrium, the New York-based new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound presented an alluring performance of John Luther Adams’s Ten Thousand Birds. Written for the Ensemble and designed by its artistic director Alan Pierson, the work follows the cycle of a day, beginning with morning bird songs before moving into the afternoon, evening, and night, ultimately returning to morning. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Now 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…]
by Robert Rollin
Last Sunday afternoon, May 8, in Severance Hall, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra presented the third and final season concert of its 30th-anniversary season under its talented music director, Brett Mitchell. The concert’s stylistic range was remarkable given the age of its participants. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Recognized for his prodigious output of symphonic film scores during the 1930s and 40s, Viennese composer, conductor, and arranger Erich Wolfgang Korngold was well-known in Europe for his concert and chamber music, operas and stage works before arriving in Hollywood. After the end of World War II, the composer retired from film music in order to dedicate himself to writing music for the concert hall. One of the first works he penned was his Violin Concerto, which received its premiere on February 15, 1947 by Jascha Heifetz and the St. Louis Symphony.
On Sunday, May 8 at 3:00 pm at Severance Hall, Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra competition winner Jieming Tang will perform Korngold’s virtuosic concerto as part of the concluding concert of COYO’s 30th-anniversary season. Under the direction of music director Brett Mitchell, the program will also include Adam Schoenberg’s Finding Rothko, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. [Read more…]
by Carlyn Kessler
On Sunday evening, February 28, the Cleveland Cello Society (CCS) welcomed audience members into Case Western Reserve University’s Harkness Chapel for the 18th iCellisti concert, an annual event organized by CCS and directed by cellist Ida Mercer. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
On Friday, March 4 at 8:00 pm at Severance Hall, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra will perform what director Brett Mitchell says is the most challenging piece the orchestra has played during his tenure. “Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka is certainly a challenging undertaking even for the best of professional orchestras,” Mitchell pointed out during a telephone interview. “But I’ve been with COYO long enough to know that whatever challenge is put in front of the musicians they will, without fail, rise to the challenge. In fact, they always end up exceeding my expectations.” [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
Back to the Future (1985) took center-stage at Severance Hall last Thursday evening, December 10, on The Cleveland Orchestra’s “At the Movies” series. Deftly conducted by associate conductor Brett Mitchell, the Orchestra played the score live as the film was shown on a huge screen over the stage. Other than a slight bobble at the outset, the performance sparkled with excellent ensemble and balanced beautifully with the lively soundtrack. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
What may be the largest group of Cleveland cultural institutions ever to circle their wagons around a single project will come into play this fall when Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, The Cleveland Orchestra, Facing History and Ourselves, Ideastream, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage join together to present Violins of Hope Cleveland.
Four months of concerts, exhibitions, screenings, lectures, theatrical productions, and educational offerings will center around the extraordinary collection of violins amassed by Tel Aviv violinmaker Amnon Weinstein, instruments that managed to survive the Holocaust.
Weinstein, who emigrated from Eastern Europe to open a violin shop in Palestine in 1938, learned after World War II that some four hundred of his family members had perished under the Nazis. Later, he heard a heartfelt account from a survivor who had brought an instrument in for restoration of what the violin and its music had meant to Jews during those horrific days. In 1996 — and now recognized as one of the finest violinmakers in the world — Weinstein decided to put out a call for Holocaust-era violins. To date, he has restored nearly fifty such instruments to playing condition, a collection he dubbed “Violins of Hope.” [Read more…]