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Preview: Chagrin Valley Chamber Music Series ends season with Mozart, Dvořák and Shostakovich on April 6

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by Daniel Hathaway

April-6,-'14-poster“It’s a piece of epic proportions with so many emotions from deep sorrow to sarcasm,” violinist Hristo Popov told us in a telephone conversation. “The Shostakovich Piano Quintet has a lot in common with the current political environment in Eastern Europe, and should be very appealing to people on both sides.”

Popov, who is artistic director of the Chagrin Valley Chamber Music Series, has chosen the Shostakovich, along with chamber works by Mozart and Dvořák, for the season finale of the series on Sunday, April 6 at 3:00 pm in Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls. The concert is free.

Shostakovich, who had a complicated relationship with the Stalinist government of the USSR, falling in and out of official favor on a regular basis, wrote his only chamber work for piano and string quartet in 1940, a piece that has been described as both rigorous and accessible. It was enthusiastically received at its first performance by Shostakovich and the Beethoven Quartet, who encored both the scherzo and finale.

[Read more…]

Review: Chagrin Valley Chamber Music — pianist Caroline Oltmanns gives intimate recital with engaging commentary (February 23)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Oltmanns-CVCM-022314Before concert halls became ubiquitous, piano recitals were usually intimate affairs staged in domestic music rooms or salons. Caroline Oltmanns recreated that kind of ambiance during her recital on Sunday afternoon, February 23 at Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls when she played the annual midwinter piano concert on the Chagrin Valley Chamber Music series.

The room is not large, though the ceiling is lofty. The audience was good-sized for a February Sunday, but not numerous enough to need to be addressed as though it were a public meeting. And the piano, somewhere between a baby grand and a six-footer, was the sort of instrument you might encounter in someone’s living room.

Oltmanns took profit of all of those circumstances to spend an engaging hour communicating directly to her listeners, both through her flawless and eloquent playing and through her running commentary. [Read more…]

Review: Stopping in at two Sunday afternoon concerts — Lara Nie with Cleveland Virtuosi in Chagrin Falls, Buck McDaniel at Trinity Cathedral

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by Daniel Hathaway

NIE-LaraArea concertgoers had their choice of at least seventeen concerts to attend on Sunday, December 15. I took the opportunity to stop in for two events which were of particular interest.

New York-based mezzo-soprano Lara Nie was featured with the Cleveland Virtuosi Orchestra in an afternoon holiday concert presented by Chagrin Valley Chamber Music Series at Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls. I caught the first half of the performance, which departed from holiday music in the direction of singer’s choice. Nie had always wanted to perform the aria, Erbarme dich from J.S. Bach’s Matthew-Passion — and a pair of Handel’s opera arias — with violinist and artistic director Hristo Popov, and this occasion was the perfect opportunity.

The Virtuosi, an eleven-member string ensemble with harpsichord conducted by Michael Gelfand, opened with a lush reading of Bach’s chorale from Cantata BWV 147, known in English as Jesu, joy of Man’s desiring. [Read more…]

Preview: Chagrin Valley Chamber Music Holiday Concert — something different, something to please everybody

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by Daniel Hathaway

NIE-LaraWhen cellist and conductor Michael Gelfand first saw the proposed program for the Chagrin Valley Chamber Music Series Holiday Concert on December 15, he said to himself, “Woo — what have we got here?” After all, most holiday concerts follow a predictable pattern (CVCM, for example, normally performs Handel’s Messiah). This one opens its arms wide enough to embrace both an aria from Bach’s Matthew Passion and Frosty the Snow Man.

Credit that variety to the series’s artistic director, violinist Hristo Popov, and the contacts he’s made during his travels. “The whole thing comes about because of Hristo,” Gelfand said. “He’s a terrific impresario who pulls together friends from all over the world and this series is pretty amazing. It’s a delight in this case to have Lara Nie come from New York to sing.”

That explains the choice of Erbarme dich, the Bach aria, which Nie will sing on Sunday along with two opera arias by Handel from Ariodante and Alcina. [Read more…]

Review: Chagrin Valley Chamber Music Series — violinist Andrew Sords & pianist Eriko Izumida at Valley Lutheran (October 13)

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by Guytano Parks

GP-CVCM-PhotoViolinist Andrew Sords and pianist Eriko Izumida opened the 2013/14 Chagrin Valley Chamber Music Concert Series with a brilliant recital at Valley Lutheran Church in Chagrin Falls this past Sunday afternoon. Works by Elgar, Bartók, Piazzolla and Hubay received splendid readings by the duo, who have collaborated numerous times throughout the area and abroad.

Sords delivered the opening Allegro of Elgar’s Sonata, Op. 82, assertively, with drama and passion, and transitioned beautifully into the introspective, lyrical sections with the assistance of sensitive and expert playing by Izumida. Both matched subtle tone colors and expressive inflections.

Elgar dedicated this sonata to a family friend, Marie Joshua, and wrote to her: “I fear it does not carry us any further but it is full of golden sounds and I like it, but you must not expect anything violently chromatic or cubist.”

Sords gave the Andante an improvisatory feel with long, lyrical lines at first, contrasting that with some jaunty phrases and harmonic surprises later. [Read more…]

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