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ChamberFest Cleveland announces its third season: ten concerts in June

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Photo by Gary Adams

Photo by Gary Adams

For its third season, Franklin and Diana Cohen’s ChamberFest Cleveland will expand to ten concerts, to be presented from June 19 through June 29 at several venues. The festival includes a family concert and a world premiere collaboration with GroundWorks DanceTheater.

The roster of artists includes violinists Noah Bendix-Balgley, Yehonatan Berick, David Bowlin, Jinjoo Cho, Diana Cohen, Yura Lee and Amy Schwartz Moretti; violists Yehonatan Berick, Yu Jin, Yura Lee and Dimitri Murrath; cellists Julie Albers, Gabriel Cabezas and Robert deMaine; bassist Nathan Farrington; pianists Roman Rabinovich and Orion Weiss; clarinetist Franklin Cohen; oboists Alex Klein and Xiomara Mass; bassoonist Fernando Traba; harpsichordist Carolyn Warner; percussionists Scott Christian, Alexander Cohen and Luke Rinderknecht; and pipa and ruan player Min Xiao-Fen. The Festival Speaker will be composer, performer, writer and educator Patrick Castillo.

The schedule follows (performer details yet to be announced): [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland — Movie Night (June 27)

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by Guytano Parks

Keaton-The-GeneralChamberFest Cleveland again presented Movie Night — back by popular demand — for their second season as part of this year’s 10-day schedule of creative programs on Thursday, June 27 at The Cedar Lee Theatre, followed by a cabaret-style concert by ChamberFest artists at The Wine Spot.

Israeli-born pianist and composer Matan Porat, a ChamberFest artist, improvised on piano during the 1926 silent film, The General, written and directed by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman and based on Daring & Suffering: A History of the Great Train Adventure by William Pittenger. ChamberFest’s Artistic Director Franklin Cohen said in his brief welcoming remarks that Porat “had no idea what he was going to play” during the screening. But Porat obviously had an arsenal of material up his sleeves, improvising non-stop for the entire 75-minute duration of the film. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland final concert — Mirrors at Dunham Tavern Barn (June 30)

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by Daniel Hathaway

CFC-June-30-AdamsFor the last of the eight concerts in its expanded second season, ChamberFest Cleveland moved from traditional concert halls (and a new art gallery) to our local urban version of a rustic summer New England venue, the Dunham Tavern’s barn on Euclid Avenue in midtown. The structure, built in 2000, replaced an 1840 horse and crop storage barn that was leveled by a fire in 1963. Though it looks rather modern and utilitarian from the outside, its wooden beams frame an interior space with warm acoustical properties.

There’s barely room to swing a viola there, much less accommodate a grand piano, so Mirrors was devoted to music by Purcell, Britten and Mendelssohn for three, four and five string players who stood (except for the cellists) to save room, optimize sight lines and broadcast the music over the heads of the capacity audience, who were packed into the space on folding chairs. The seating was uncomfortable and the temperature a bit on the warm side, but the afternoon was otherwise completely delightful, with the bonus of free ice cream outside afterward. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland — A Tempo at Harkness Chapel (June 28)

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by Mike Telin

CFC-June-28a-AdamsAlthough the 2013 ChamberFest Cleveland theme is [It’s] About Time, a secondary theme could easily be Variety is the Spice of Life. On Friday, June 28 at Harkness Chapel the superb ChamberFest musicians presented a thoroughly engaging program full of musical variety from start to finish titled A Tempo.

The technically commanding and musically sensitive cellist Robert deMaine began the evening with a high energy performance of Alberto Ginastera’s Pampeana No. 2, Rhapsody for cello and piano. The brief work depicting the Argentine pampas or treeless plains gave deMaine ample room to demonstrate his soulful side as well as his virtuosic prowess. Pianist Matan Porat was a keen collaborator, performing with rhythmic precision.

Porat, together with violinist Yehonatan Berick and cellist Julie Albers, were of one musical mind during their captivating performance of Ravel’s Trio in A minor. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland: Riot [Like It’s 1913!] at Mixon Hall, CIM (June 29)

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by Daniel Hathaway

CFC-June-29ChamberFest Cleveland continued to pack ’em in on Friday evening at CIM’s Mixon Hall, when an enthusiastic, capacity crowd gathered for a program entitled Riot [Like It’s 1913]. It wasn’t 1913 until the second half and even then the closest thing to a popular uprising was an immediate standing ovation, but the work that generated the theme of the evening was Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Not the big one, but the composer’s rehearsal version for two pianos (played by Orion Weiss and Matan Porat), spiffed up for the occasion with percussion parts arranged by Scott Christian and Alexander Cohen (who played them) and Diana Cohen (who rooted from the audience).

Stravinsky’s orchestration is rich with color and vibrant with rhythm. The two-piano version necessarily sheds a lot of symphonic hues (something that’s obvious from the opening bars, when that strained high bassoon solo gets translated to the keyboard), but the visceral quality of the composer’s groundbreaking rhythms only becomes enhanced on the piano. Add to that five timpani, bass drum, cymbals, gongs and other instruments culled from the orchestral batterie, and the effect is super-thrilling. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland continues with Companion Guide to Rome (June 26)

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by Timothy Robson

CFC-June-26-AdamsChamberFest Cleveland continued its winning ways on Wednesday, June 26, at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall, in a well-attended concert with the alluring theme Layers: The Architecture of Time. Although the relationship of the theme to the actual music was not explicated, there were elements of layering and polyphony in all of the works presented.

After some introductory remarks by Frank Cohen and Diana Cohen, the festival directors, the concert opened with a Baroque musical curiosity, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s Battalia for ten string instruments and harpsichord continuo (3 violins, 4 violas, 2 double basses and harpsichord). In eight short movements, Biber depicts scenes of an army preparing for battle, fighting, and finally lamenting the lost and wounded soldiers. There are many “advanced” instrumental techniques: various kinds of plucking and bowing the strings, including the double bass wrapping a piece of paper around the strings and then bouncing his bow to create a sound that simulates that of a snare drum. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland: Let’s Dance! at Harkness Chapel (June 23)

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by Nicholas Jones

Harkness-062313After opening with two intense concerts on Thursday and Friday, the musicians of ChamberFest Cleveland 2013 let their hair down on Sunday. This was my first opportunity to attend this second year of Franklin and Diana Cohen’s ambitious and highly successful venture, and it was a pleasure to be there with a hall full of Cleveland’s seasoned musical connoisseurs. In addition, thanks to the festival’s decision to give free tickets to 18-and-unders, there were a bunch of youngsters in the audience.

The first half was for strings only. The concert opened with a Boccherini quintet from Opus 11, the one with the famous Minuet that every beginning violinist learns. It is not a demanding piece, technically, but the excellent players brought to it every bit of their formidable technique anyway. Scrupulous attention to Boccherini’s dynamics made the most of his pre-Romantic expressionism, rich with ebbs and flows. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland at the Transformer Station — an impressive concert venue debut

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by Timothy Robson

Transformer-Station-062113In only its second season, ChamberFest Cleveland is already a summer musical force to be reckoned with. The brainchild of Cleveland Orchestra clarinet principal Franklin Cohen and his daughter, violinist Diana Cohen, the festival is akin to such notable gatherings as Rudolf Serkin’s Marlboro or Benjamin Britten’s Aldeburgh, where the founders invite a “family” of musical guests — in this case, mostly rising artists — attuned to their own artistic goals, with a variety of programming in interesting venues.

The second concert of the 2013 season took place on Friday, June 21, at 9:00 pm (the better to enjoy the Summer Solstice sunlight?) at the Transformer Station, a new Ohio City gallery on W. 29th Street a block south of Detroit Avenue, developed by art collectors Laura and Fred Bidwell in collaboration with the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Read more…]

Review: ChamberFest Cleveland 2013 opening concert — Continuum: The Divine Cosmos at Mixon Hall (June 20)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Mixon-062013The second iteration of ChamberFest Cleveland opened June 20 in CIM’s Mixon Hall on festive, thoughtful and ecstatic notes with music by Matan Porat, Mozart and Messiaen, preceded by a free preludial concert by Sphinx Competition prize-winning cellist Gabriel Cabezas and pianist Orion Weiss.

ChamberFest is an extended family affair that draws a number of close musical friends into its orbit, but its immediate family is Franklin, Diana and Alexander Cohen, an unusual trio of clarinet, violin and timpani for whom Matan Porat wrote an ingratiating festival fanfare entitled Start Time. Ringing changes on ChamberFest’s theme, (It’s) About Time, the short piece gave all three instruments a workout as they joined in and responded to one another after an arresting timpani solo.

The main work on Thursday evening’s program was Olivier Messiaen’s mystical Quartet for the End of Time, a work so emotionally intense that it can fill out an entire concert all by itself without the need for musical companionship. [Read more…]

Preview: ChamberFest Cleveland — conversations with cellist Gabriel Cabezas, speaker Patrick Castillo and composer Andrew Norman

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by Mike Telin

CABEZAS-GabrielBeginning on Thursday, June 20 and running through Sunday, June 30 with performances and activities in traditional concert and non-traditional venues around Cleveland, the 2013 edition of ChamberFest Cleveland has something to offer to all. During the past week we have had the opportunity to speak with three ChamberFest artists: returning guest speaker Patrick Castillo, composer Andrew Norman and the renowned young cellist Gabriel Cabezas (left), who will open this season’s festival with a free prelude recital on June 20 in Mixon Hall beginning at 7:00 pm. Cabezas, the winner of the 15th annual Sphinx Competition, and Sphinx’s 2012 Isaac Stern Award, will be joined by pianist Orion Weiss in a program that features the music of Janáček and Debussy.

Although Cabezas has already amassed an impressive list of performances with orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the National Symphony of Costa Rica, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the New World Symphony, and the Nashville Symphony, he says that he equally enjoys playing chamber music, “I really look forward to working with Orion and all of the musicians who will be part of ChamberFest.” In addition to Thursday’s recital Cabezas will also be part of the performances at the Transformer Station on June 21 andin Harkness Chapel on June 23. [Read more…]

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