by Daniel Hathaway

Sometimes it’s not so easy to produce a concert. An established string quartet originally announced to appear with CIM piano professor Daniel Shapiro on the Arts Renaissance Tremont series last Sunday afternoon, November 17, withdrew late in the summer.

Fortunately, ART artistic director Christine Haff-Paluck had the rich resources of the Cleveland Institute of Music to draw upon, and organized a replacement quartet of excellent players: violinists Jinjoo Cho and James Thompson, violist Leah Ferguson and cellist Catlyn Kessler.

Then came the piano issue. Shapiro needed a more powerful instrument than the resident piano for a program of Romantic piano quintets, so a Steinway B was graciously loaned for the occasion from the Oberlin Conservatory.

And then there was a change in the program order after the programs had been printed: Dvořák’s Quintet in A, op. 81 was to have begun the concert, with Franck’s Quintet in f to follow. Haff announced before the concert that the two pieces would be played in reverse order. [Read more…]