ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad
Ad

Flutist Demarre McGill to make Cleveland debut with ChamberFest June 23

by

by Jarrett Hoffman

McGill-DemarreDemarre McGill has guts.

“I enjoy challenging myself — I like to feel as hungry and energetic as I did before my first job, when I was a student,” he said in a recent conversation. “I grow from being in that particular zone. And because of that, I can do something a lot of people would question — resign from a wonderful orchestra like the Dallas Symphony to play a one-year contract with the Met.” McGill served as acting principal flute of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra this season.

“I knew that after having that experience, no matter what the result at the end of the year, I would be so much better. So leaving a great job to grow tremendously is something I would do — that I did — in a heartbeat.” [Read more…]

Pianist Zoltán Fejérvári to make Cleveland debut with ChamberFest June 22

by

Screen Shot 2017-06-20 at 3.12.59 PMby Mike Telin

Fresh off his first-prize win at the 2017 Montreal International Musical Competition in May, Hungarian pianist Zoltán Fejérvári will return to North America this week to make his ChamberFest Cleveland debut on Thursday, June 22. “I’m excited about being part of the Festival,” the pianist said by telephone from Hungary. “I know a lot of people who have been, and will be there, and they all have had wonderful things to say about it.”

In addition to his success in Montreal, Zoltán Fejérvári is the 2016 recipient of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship. He has given recitals at Carnegie’s Weill Hall, the Kimmel Center, and venues across Europe. As a concerto soloist, the pianist has performed with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Hungarian National Orchestra, and at the Verbier Festival. An active chamber musician, he participated in the Marlboro Music Festival during the summers of 2014 through 2016. [Read more…]

Lauren Eberwein to make debut at ChamberFest Cleveland

by

by Samantha Spaccasi

EberweinFrom the time she was able to speak, Lauren Eberwein sang. “I was the kid in the corner singing her thoughts to herself, or dancing around the playground writing my own musicals in my head, narrating my life through song,” the mezzo-soprano said in an email. Eberwein will be featured in Kurt Weill songs in the first of her three ChamberFest Cleveland programs tonight, June 16, at 6:30 and 8:30 at the Bop Stop. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland’s Kafka Fragments to feature filmmaker Kasumi

by

by Jarrett Hoffman

Kasumi-Web“I don’t know what my brain knows,” says filmmaker Kasumi in her 2015 TEDx talk Portrait of the Artist as a Young Meme. “One tiny stimulus fuels infinite branches, reactions, associations…if we were consciously aware of everything we came in contact with, we would explode, or go crazy. I became an artist…and technology is the hammer I use to open the universe of memory.”

On Tuesday, June 20 at 6:30 and 8:30 pm at Transformer Station, ChamberFest Cleveland will present a new perspective on Kafka Fragments, György Kurtág’s hour-long work for solo violin and voice. The piece draws on excerpts from the Prague-born author’s notebooks, diaries, and letters. Joining mezzo-soprano Lauren Eberwein and the tag-teaming duo of violinists Alexi Kenney and Yura Lee will be 2011 Guggenheim Fellow and Cleveland-based filmmaker Kasumi, whose digital imagery fragments were commissioned by the Festival.

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: a chat with pianist & CIM grad Andrius Žlabys

by

by Mike Telin

ZlabysOn Thursday, June 15 at 7:30 pm in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Diana and Franklin Cohen’s always imaginative ChamberFest Cleveland kicks off its sixth season with a concert titled “Cycles — Phases” featuring Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and Elgar’s Piano Quintet in a. The evening will also include John Adams’ playful Hallelujah Junction for two pianos. “This is quite a piece,” pianist Andrius Žlabys said during a telephone conversation. “It’s amazingly challenging, and I’m looking forward to working with Roman Rabinovich for the first time.”

Thursday’s concert marks Žlabys’ first-ever ChamberFest performance as well as a sort of homecoming — the Lithuanian-born pianist spent five years studying at the Cleveland Institute of Music where he was a student of Sergei Babayan. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: introducing bassist Xavier Foley

by

Xavier-Foleyby Mike Telin

When asked, most musicians are able to pinpoint an event that led them to make the decision to pursue music as a career. For bassist Xavier Foley, it was in 2006 when at eleven years old and in the sixth grade, he shifted his attention away from his teacher Miss King’s discussion of nouns, adverbs, and clauses, in favor of making a bow and arrow out of a paper clip and a rubber band. Click here to watch a video where the Marietta, Georgia native explains all. And yes, it’s quite funny.

Since that fateful day, Foley has gone on to become a First Prize winner in 2014 at the Sphinx Competition and Astral Artists National Auditions, as well as a winner at the 2016 Young Concert Artists Auditions. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: a profile of cellist Oliver Herbert

by

by Samantha Spaccasi

Herbert-OliverCellist Oliver Herbert has been busy this year. “I just got back from a three-week tour with the Curtis Orchestra,” he said in a phone interview. The tour spanned the globe, with stops in New York, Finland, the United Kingdom, and Austria. When he wasn’t touring, the San Francisco native was studying full-time at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Herbert also made his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, playing Strauss’s Don Quixote.

“I was invited to play four family concerts with the Orchestra,” he said. “They wanted a young soloist because it was appropriate for the occasion. It was fantastic and really special to play with that group.” Oliver wasn’t the only Herbert in the orchestra that night, however: his father, David Herbert, is principal timpanist. “We played together in the same concert.” [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland’s Season 6 — Cycles: Phases! — launches on June 15

by

by Mike Telin

ChamberFest-BannerChamberFest Cleveland has done it again and come up with eleven intriguing programs for their sixth season, which will run from June 15 through July 1.

This year, co-artistic directors Franklin and Diana Cohen have put a new spin on the Festival. Cycles: Phases! reflects on the complexity of the human experience at each stage of life.

There will be many familiar faces onstage, as well as a number of performers who are new to the ChamberFest family. As always, programs will be presented in a variety of venues, from the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall and CWRU’s Harkness Chapel to modern, urban settings such as Hingetown’s Transformer Station and the Bop Stop, and Midtown’s Dunham Tavern Museum. Tickets are now on sale. Click here for further information.

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: pianist Roman Rabinovich in Haydn sonatas at Dunham Tavern Museum (Dec. 16)

by

by Mike Telin

rabinovichOver the course of three concerts, the outstanding pianist Roman Rabinovich performed fifteen of Haydn’s keyboard sonatas as part of ChamberFest Cleveland’s Winter Mini Festival. I heard the final recital at Dunham Tavern Museum on Friday, December 16. [Read more…]

What makes it so great? An intimate look at ChamberFest Cleveland

by

by Neil McCalmont

ChamberFest2016GolijovGroup“Dad, I think we should have a festival.” Recalling the words of his daughter Diana, Franklin Cohen related how ChamberFest Cleveland first got started. “We loved the way summer music festivals felt like a family,” he explained. “What a great way to reach the core of the average audience member.”

After more than a dozen thrilling concerts, the festival’s fifth season has come to a close. Though the number of artists and performances has grown since its 2012 inception, ChamberFest still holds this mission at its core: “To nurture a deep family-like connection between musicians and audiences of all ages.”

The father-daughter duo of Franklin and Diana Cohen founded and co-direct ChamberFest Cleveland. Diana is concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, her father the principal clarinet emeritus of The Cleveland Orchestra. They set out to found a festival — partly inspired by their experiences at the Marlboro Music Festival — with the goal of “great players, great music-making, and great community.” [Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us