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CD Review:
Barbara Hannigan in Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you

January 13, 2016 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

Released on January 8, just a week before her U.S. premiere of the work with The Cleveland Orchestra, Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan’s recording of Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you with Andris Nelsons and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra should count as one of the most important new music CDs of 2016. [Read more…]

CD Review: Oberlin Collegium Musicum — Cantemus II

November 3, 2015 by Daniel Hathaway

by Mike Telin

This week Steven Plank, the Andrew B. Meldrum Professor of Musicology at Oberlin College, will celebrate his 25th anniversary as director of the Oberlin Collegium Musicum, when over 70 of his former singers gather for a reunion concert on November 7 at 8:00 pm in Warner Concert Hall. Read more about the event here. In a recent compilation CD, CANTEMUS II: Music of the Oberlin Collegium Musicum, Plank leads his top-notch ensemble in stellar performances of seminal works of sacred music from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. [Read more…]

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Cleveland Orchestra’s holiday concerts return with plenty of festive cheer (Dec. 11)

by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — If the twinkling lights, leafy green garlands and festive poinsettias didn’t already clue you in, the holidays have arrived at Severance Music Center. ‘Tis the season for annual traditions — including The Cleveland Orchestra’s holiday concerts, which began on Wednesday evening.

Running through December 22, the programs feature plenty of seasonal classics plus some potential new favorites. The first performance proved that this mix is a delightful recipe for festive cheer.

“Look at you all, out on a school night!” conductor Sarah Hicks proclaimed joyfully from the podium. Just as many concertgoers donned red outfits to get into the spirit, Mandel Concert Hall was also decked out with decorations and stage lighting effects.

[Read on…]

Oberlin Conservatory convincingly tells Omar’s story (Dec. 8)

by Stephanie Manning

The Cleveland premiere of Rhiannon Giddens’ and Michael Abels’ Pultizer Prize-winning opera Omar on December 8 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center proved that concert productions of opera can succeed without sets, elaborate costumes and extensive staging. Indeed, the Oberlin Conservatory presentation offered more than enough to keep the audience in the crowded house enthralled.

The Opera, which was also presented at Oberlin’s Finney Chapel two days earlier, is based on the 1831 autobiography of Muslim scholar Omar ibn Said, the only such work written by an enslaved person during their enslavement, and the only such document written in Arabic.

Rhiannon Giddens’ brilliant libretto chronicles the life of ibn Said, beginning in present-day Senegal and following him through his capture, journey via the Middle Passage, and enslavement in North and South Carolina. [Read on…]

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