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Blind Injustice: a conversation with the stage director, conductor, and chorus master (4th of 4 articles)

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by Mike Telin

This weekend, Chagrin Arts will present the Northeast Ohio premiere of Blind Injustice at Outcalt Theatre in Playhouse Square.

Composed by Scott Davenport Richards with a libretto by David Cote, the opera is based on Ohio Innocence Project co-founder Mark Godsey’s book of the same name and interviews with six people who had their convictions overturned. The 90-minute opera will be presented on Friday, July 11 (sold out), Saturday, July 12 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, July 13 at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

We caught up with director Eric van Baars, conductor Andrew Grams, and chorus master Jay White on Zoom. I began our conversation by asking them how they became involved with the project.

[Read more…]

Blind Injustice: the making of an opera (3rd of 4 articles)

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by Mike Telin

This weekend, Chagrin Arts will present the Northeast Ohio premiere of Blind Injustice at Outcalt Theatre in Playhouse Square.

Based on Ohio Innocence Project co-founder Mark Godsey’s book of the same name and interviews with six people who had their convictions overturned, the 90-minute opera will be presented on Friday, July 11 (sold out), Saturday, July 12 at 7:30 pm, and Sunday, July 13 at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

We caught up with composer Scott Davenport Richards and librettist David Cote on Zoom.

Mike Telin: Who originally approached whom about creating this opera? 

David Cote: The Cincinnati Opera reached out to me because they heard about my work, but the director, Robin Guarino, was already attached to the project. At the time, she was running the opera program at Cincinnati Conservatory, so I flew out there, met her, and we hit it off. We did some initial interviews with the exonerees. So we had a framework, but we needed to find the perfect composer.

[Read more…]

The cast of Blind Injustice discuss portraying real people and the power of hope (2nd of 4 articles)

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by Stephanie Manning

 While the team at Chagrin Arts was in talks to bring Blind Injustice to Northeast Ohio, the question of location became increasingly important. “We talked about doing it in different cities, but it became clear that this needs to happen in Cleveland,” tenor Tim Culver said.

Composed by Scott Davenport Richards with a libretto by David Cote, the 90-minute opera follows the stories of six people who had their convictions overturned with help from the Ohio Innocence Project. Four of them lived in Cleveland or East Cleveland, while the other two lived in neighboring Lorain and Summit counties.

[Read more…]

Blind Injustice: Six lives wrongly incarcerated, one story of hope and resilience (1st of 4 articles)

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by Mike Telin

When Karen Prasser started her job as executive director of Chagrin Arts in January of 2019, she found herself going through the files of programs that participants in Chautauqua-in-Chagrin had said they wanted to learn more about. Among them was the University of Cincinnati-based Ohio Innocence Project (OIP) who have a simple goal: to free every innocent person in Ohio who has been convicted of a crime they didn’t commit.

At the same time, Prasser — who had worked in opera for many years — was made aware of Blind Injustice, a work that was to receive its premiere by Cincinnati Opera on July 22, 2019. The 90-minute, one-act opera is based on OIP co-founder Mark Godsey’s book of the same name, and on interviews with six people who had their convictions overturned through the efforts of the Ohio Innocence Project. [Read more…]

Callisto Quartet returns for a second outdoor concert

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by Daniel Hathaway

UPDATE: Due to weather conditions, this concert will move indoors at 7:00 pm at the Solon Center for the Arts. 6315 SOM Center Road, Solon.

Almost a year to the day, the Callisto Quartet, formed in 2016 at the Cleveland Institute of Music, will return to the scene of their 2020 concert in Solon Community Park for a second al fresco performance. On Friday, July 16 at 7:00 pm, violinists Paul Aguilar and Rachel Stenzel, violist Eva Kennedy, and cellist Hannah Moses will play Haydn and Beethoven in a free, open air concert.

The event, presented again this year by Chagrin Arts in cooperation with the City of Solon, will relax most of the COVID protocols that were in place last year, but audience members should still bring their own lawn chairs or blankets and refreshments.

The Callisto have just completed a two-year appointment as graduate quartet in residence at the Shepherd School of Music at Houston’s Rice University, and will take up a similar position at Yale in September. I reached them via Zoom to catch up on their activities and plans. [Read more…]

Callisto Quartet to perform live and al fresco in Solon on July 17

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by Daniel Hathaway

Life is full of new experiences for a young chamber music ensemble, but this week will mark a real first for the Callisto Quartet. Although violinists Paul Aguilar and Rachel Stenzel, violist Eva Kennedy, and cellist Hanna Moses played a number of outdoor concerts on their Italian tour last summer, Friday will be their debut performing on a baseball field.

On July 17 at 7:00 pm, the Callistos will play Mozart’s “Hunt” Quartet, K. 458, and Debussy’s Quartet in a free concert at Solon Community Park.

The event, presented by Chagrin Arts in cooperation with the City of Solon, will observe social distancing. Face masks are mandatory, and each household will be asked to stay within circles chalked on the field. Attendees should bring their own snacks and lawn chairs. The players, who will perform “right in front of the dugout,” will be miked.

[Read more…]

No Exit presents bass clarinet & marimba duo Transient Canvas

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by Jarrett Hoffman

The musicians of No Exit have a hand in two concerts this month. First up, on Sunday, March 15 at 3:00 pm, the new music ensemble will perform on the Chagrin Arts series at Federated Church, bringing along works they commissioned from Christopher Stark, Buck McDaniel, and Ladislav Kubík, as well as music by Leo Ornstein, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Giacinto Scelsi. [Note from the editors: the March 15 concert has now been postponed, with a new date to be announced.]

Then on Friday, March 20 at 7:00 pm, No Exit will take a turn on the presenting side of the equation, hosting Boston-based Transient Canvas (bass clarinetist Amy Advocat and marimbist Matt Sharrock) at Appletree Books in Cleveland Heights, in a program of music that was all written for the duo.

The centerpiece is Marti Epstein’s 2012 Origami, which repeats and juxtaposes four musical gestures in different ways, “almost as if they fold in on themselves,” as Transient Canvas writes on their website. [Read more…]

Chagrin Arts: fusing art and music with bassoonist Barry Stees

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Inside every artist’s brain is a region where the words of their mentors float around like balloons, even years or decades later. During a recent phone call, bassoonist Barry Stees looked back on one such piece of advice from the late K. David Van Hoesen, his former teacher at the Eastman School of Music.

“He was always encouraging us to read literature, view art, and take in other forms of culture to fill in the context behind the music we were learning,” said Stees, who serves as assistant principal bassoon in The Cleveland Orchestra.

That stuck with him. And now, he’s developed a concert program themed around music and the visual art and artists that inspired it. He’ll bring that to life with pianist Randall Fusco, oboist Cynthia Watson Sperl, and the Callisto Quartet at Chagrin Falls United Methodist Church this Friday, April 26 at 7:30 pm as part of the Chagrin Arts series. Visual art will be displayed on the walls, and shown on projections.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Wind Octet at Chagrin Methodist Church (Mar. 20)

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by Jarrett Hoffman

ChagrinArtsOctetThey should do this more often. Making only their second group appearance, the Cleveland Wind Octet — including members of The Cleveland Orchestra and a couple of esteemed local friends — brought the crowd to its feet at Chagrin Falls’ United Methodist Church last Friday. Performances of a classic, an arrangement, and a new piece composed by one of the group’s own were sublime. [Read more…]

Cleveland Wind Octet to feature music by Jeffrey Rathbun on the Chagrin Arts Series March 20

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by Daniel Hathaway

RATHBUN-JeffreyAs busy as they are at Severance Hall, members of The Cleveland Orchestra still find time to form a number of chamber music ensembles to perform around the region. One of the newest groups is the Cleveland Wind Octet, who played their inaugural concert on the Rocky River Chamber Music Series last spring. They’ll play their second engagement on Friday, March 20 at 7:30 pm on the Chagrin Arts Series at Chagrin Falls Methodist Church (tickets available here.)

The Octet includes Cleveland Orchestra members Alan DeMattia & Richard King, horns, Daniel McKelway, clarinet, Jeffrey Rathbun, oboe, & Barrick Stees & Jonathan Sherwin, bassoons, together with friends Richard Hawkins (clarinet professor at Oberlin) and Michele Smith (who plays oboe in the Toledo Symphony.) The March 20 program will feature Rathbun’s Rocky River Music, in addition to Edvard Grieg’s Four Lyrical Pieces, arranged by the late Chicago Symphony bassoonist Willard Elliot, and Wolfgang Amadè Mozart’s Serenade in c, K. 388. [Read more…]

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