ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad
Ad

ChamberFest 2015: A conversation with Matthew Tracy of the Echo Saxophone Quartet

by

by Jeremy Reynolds

Echo-Sax-Quartet“This is exactly the type of performance opportunity that we’re interested in doing as a quartet — we’re taking it extremely seriously,” said Mathew Tracy (pictured second from the left), soprano saxophone player in the Echo Quartet. On Wednesday, July 1 at 7:00 pm, in the Blackstone Pipe Organ Residence, the quartet — comprising Tracy, Kyle Landry (alto), Casey Grev (tenor), and Eric Troiano (baritone) — will open ChamberFest Cleveland’s final 2015 concert with Terry Riley’s Tread on the Trail. The program, titled “Stars and Stripes” in honor of its proximity to July 4, will feature works by American composers Charles Ives and Ned Rorem and American-inspired music by Antonín Dvořák. We reached Tracy by phone to ask how the quartet became involved with ChamberFest and to discuss Riley’s music.

“This is our first year playing in ChamberFest,” said Tracy. “We were contacted by Diana Cohen about four months ago, asking if we wanted to be a part of the festival. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland 2015: second performance sheds light in Mixon Hall (June 18)

by

by Jeremy Reynolds

WEISS-OrionMusicologists have long been fascinated by works that transform from a dark, minor tonality to a brighter major key. Perhaps the most famous example of this phenomenon is Beethoven’s fifth symphony, which achieves its thematic unity through a ubiquitous rhythmic motif. Would the symphony in question pack the same punch without this cohesion? Probably not. The second concert in ChamberFest, “Becoming Light,” began with Thomas Adès’s primordial Darknesse Visible for solo piano, progressed through Shostakovich’s transformative Piano Quintet, Op. 57, and concluded with Beethoven’s glittering Septet in E-flat Major, Op. 20. [Read more…]

ChamberFest: a conversation with cellist Peter Wiley

by

by Jeremy Reynolds

WileyUpon entering the Curtis Institute of Music at age 13, cellist Peter Wiley embarked on a colorful career that now spans over five decades. In the 1980s, he began performing with the Beaux Arts Trio. In the 1990s, he co-founded the Opus One piano quartet with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott. And in 2001, he inherited his mentor David Soyer’s position in the Guarneri Quartet — Wiley has been nominated for Grammy Awards with the Beaux Arts Trio as well as the Guarneri Quartet.

This year marks Wiley’s first year performing in ChamberFest Cleveland, during which he will play in the first four concerts on June 17, 18, 19, and 21. (See our interview with the Frank and Diana Cohen for details about each concert.)

I spoke with Wiley on the phone a few hours after he arrived in Cleveland, and I asked him how he came to be involved in ChamberFest. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: a conversation with violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti

by

by Mike Telin

Schwartz-Moretti-Amy“When Diana and Frank came up with this fantastic idea of starting ChamberFest, I was so happy when they invited me to be part of the first festival,” violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti said during a telephone conversation while enroute to Cleveland. “Diana and I were both in Donald Weilerstein’s studio at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Of course, back then Frank was ‘Mr. Cohen,’ but I got to hear him play all the time at Severance Hall, and I got to know him through school because he also teaches at CIM. I always had a wonderful relationship with both of them.”

In addition to reconnecting with the Cohens, the opportunity to be part of ChamberFest also gave Schwartz Moretti the chance to rediscover a city she had not visited in some time. “When I came back to Cleveland after not having been there since the 1990s, I was so impressed with all the changes in the University Circle area, and with all that was happening in Cleveland in general — it is such a vibrant city. And ChamberFest is just a wonderful addition, with all the great musicians it brings to town.” [Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us