by Kevin McLaughlin
In a 1902 interview, Gabriel Fauré, who spent much of his career as an organist, said his goal in writing his Requiem was to stray from the established path, “after all those years accompanying funerals.” So, rather than ending with the horror of a Dies irae, he chose In Paradisum instead.
On Thursday, May 15, at Fairmount Presbyterian Church, CityMusic Cleveland delivered both heaven and earth over the course of a diverse program. Responding to conductor Lorenzo Lopez’s assured direction, the ensemble gave sympathetic readings of William Grant Still’s Danzas de Panama and Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas, then ascended to a higher place in Fauré’s Requiem, aided by superb singing from soprano Chabrelle Williams, baritone Edward Vogel, and the CityMusic Community Choir.
Unfinished works seem to be held in higher esteem for their being incomplete — the remaining music feeling more precious, conscious as we are of what else might have been lost. How to explain then, the impact of Mozart’s 
Making virtue out of necessity, CIM Opera Theater director David Bamberger introduced a new operatic technique in his production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro on Thursday, November 5 in Kulas Hall: ventriloquism.