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Soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon to make ChamberFest Cleveland debut

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by Mike Telin

This week music for voice will take center stage when the dynamic soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon makes her ChamberFest debut.

Fitz Gibbon has appeared as a soloist with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and the Albany, Richmond, Tulsa, and Eureka Symphonies.

Just prior to our telephone conversation she had performed a recital for the Berkeley Early Music Festival and was a guest artist at SongFest at the San Francisco Conservatory. There she sang contemporary works by American composers including a song-cycle by Sheila Silver and the West Coast premiere of a cycle by John Harbison.

Mike Telin: We’re looking forward to your ChamberFest performances, but this is not your first visit to Cleveland.

Lucy Fitz Gibbon: That’s right. I was there in 2018 for the Art Song Festival. [Read more…]

Harpist Sivan Magen returns to ChamberFest Cleveland

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by Mike Telin

This week harpist Sivan Magen will make a return visit to ChamberFest Cleveland. “I’m excited to come back to Cleveland and play with those incredible players,” Magen said via Skype from Los Angeles, where he was preparing for a concert with his Israeli Chamber Project. “After that we’re heading to Sioux Falls, South Dakota for the American Harp Society Conference where we’ll be giving a concert, master classes, and talks.”

Born in Jerusalem, Magen studied at the Jerusalem Academy for Music and Dance. After completing his military service, he continued his studies at the Paris Conservatory and went on to complete his Master of Music degree at the Juilliard School. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: exploring the visual experience with Nicholas Houfek

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by Stephanie Manning

It’s unconventional to interview a lighting designer for an upcoming chamber music concert. But then again, a performance of Anna Thorvaldsdottír’s In the Light of Air is unconventional, too.

The four-movement suite for viola, cello, harp, piano, percussion, and electronics has a long history with the International Contemporary Ensemble (IntCE), but a new group of players will take it on for a concert as part of ChamberFest Cleveland on July 1. As lighting designer and current IntCE member Nicholas Houfek explained in a recent conversation, the difficulty with programming the piece lies in the logistics of the installation.

“We’ve had other people reach out, but once they hear what’s needed and required to install it, a lot of them kind of get scared and back away. It’s a lot for a chamber music festival or organization to take on.”

Houfek knows these requirements better than most — he’s been involved with the piece since its inception, working closely with Thorvaldsdottír while she composed it for IntCE in 2014. Describing the piece’s soundscape as “warm” and “natural” but also “otherworldly,” he discussed how sound and light combine to create the finished product.

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: Zooming with cellist & rising star Jonathan Swensen

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by Mike Telin

When looking at cellist Jonathan Swensen’s Facebook page, you can’t help but think that he is one busy guy. And one who has a good time doing what he does.

“I’m enjoying the traveling and the discovery that come with this life,” he said over Zoom. “Every audience and every hall has its special charm. I love experiencing different cultures. But it’s funny because I can go to so many places where I don’t speak anyone’s language, and be able to share something that comes from the heart. Something which any listener can understand, and that is very nice.”

Leading up to Swensen’s ChamberFest Cleveland debut on Thursday, June 23 at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall, I reached him at his home in Copenhagen. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland:
catching up with Alexi Kenney

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by Mike Telin 

Violinist Alexi Kenney was in his early twenties when he made his ChamberFest Cleveland debut. Still, his résumé up to that point was already impressive. He had won the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, had given recitals at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and was the recipient of top prizes at the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition and the Mondavi Center Competition.

Since then Alexi Kenney has established a career that is his own. He regularly creates  experimental programs, commissions new works, solos with major orchestras around the world, and is a constant figure at renowned chamber music festivals. He is also the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.

And this week Kenney will once again return to ChamberFest. I caught up with the violinist by telephone. 

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland:
Yevgeniy Sharlat &
a search for identity

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by Jarrett Hoffman

“The piece that you’re going to hear is not the piece that I wanted to write,” composer Yevgeniy Sharlat said during an interview.

Sharlat’s Dumka-22, a commission from ChamberFest Cleveland that will receive its premiere on Saturday, June 25 at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Institute of Music, was originally conceived around the idea of family — in particular the family at the core of ChamberFest.

That would be Franklin Cohen (clarinet), his daughter Diana Cohen (violin), and her husband Roman Rabinovich (piano) — the three co-artistic directors — as well as Diana’s brother Alexander Cohen (percussion), a frequent performer at the Festival.

So, how about a “family piece” written for that quartet? That was the pitch to Sharlat, the Russian-born composer who was a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow and who teaches composition at the University of Texas at Austin.

[Read more…]

Geneva Lewis & Gabriel Martins make ChamberFest debuts 

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by Mike Telin

Violinist Geneva Lewis has been hailed as “clearly one to watch” by Musical America. She is the recipient of a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and Grand Prize winner of the 2020 Concert Artists Guild Competition. Other honors include Kronberg Academy’s Prince of Hesse Prize and being named a Finalist at the 2018 Naumburg Competition, a Performance Today Young Artist in Residence, and Musical America’s New Artist of the Month.

Cellist Gabriel Martins’ accolades include the Concert Artists Guild – Young Classical Artists Trust Grand Prize, the Sphinx Competition Gold Medal, the David Popper International Cello Competition Gold Medal, and the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians Silver Medal, to name only a few. He has performed at the Wigmore, Carnegie, and Merkin Halls, 92nd Street Y, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, and with the Houston, Indianapolis, Memphis, Pacific, and Phoenix Symphony Orchestras. The Strad Magazine declared his New York City recital debut to be “flawlessly played” and “a deeply moving experience.”

Later this week the two “rising stars” will make their ChamberFest Cleveland debuts. We caught up with Lewis and Martins by Zoom and began by asking how the ChamberFest invitations came about. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: “Spirited Away” at Disciples Church (June 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The post-COVID era may be on the horizon, but it hasn’t arrived yet. That dastardly microbe that has wrought havoc in the performing arts world for more than two years is still on the prowl.

Just ask Jessica Peek Sherwood, ChamberFest Cleveland’s new executive director, whose first official acts since coming on board June 1st have been to replace musicians whose positive test results have left them on the sidelines.

Swapping out individuals in a festival roster can often be accomplished quickly and efficiently, as for ChamberFest’s opening concert when Rising Star Sterling Elliott offered to step in for another cellist without missing a beat. It’s not so simple when a guest ensemble like King’s Return, the Dallas male vocal quartet, is scheduled to headline a concert. [Read more…]

Violinists Joseph Lin and Sarah Kapustin to make ChamberFest debuts 

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by Mike Telin

Coordinating the schedules of musicians and festivals is often a long, and at times, a complicated process. Take violinists Joseph Lin and Sarah Kapustin for example. Both have been on ChamberFest Cleveland’s list of invitees from the Festival’s beginning, but the stars have simply never aligned. Until now.

Later this week both Lin and Kapustin will finally make their ChamberFest debuts when the Festival kicks off its tenth season. Click here for details.

“Ever since Diana and Frank started the festival we’ve talked about me coming, but it never seemed to work out until this year,” Lin said. “I’m so glad that everything has finally come together.”

“I’ve known Diana since we were teenagers, so for over 20 years,” Kapustin said. “I’ve been invited from the beginning but it just never worked out. My debut should have been two years ago but because of COVID  it was put on hold. So I’m happy that it’s finally on the calendar.” [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: catching up with pianist & rising star Evren Ozel

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by Daniel Hathaway

Born in Minneapolis in 1999, pianist Evren Ozel has established a stellar reputation in Northeast Ohio.

He has competed twice in the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition at Oberlin, making it into the finals in 2013, when he also won the Audience Prize. He finished second in 2016, when photographer Roger Mastroianni captured him here in the heat of collaboration with Jahja Ling and The Cleveland Orchestra. We were impressed:

17-year-old Evren Ozel, from Minneapolis, learned Beethoven’s fourth concerto expressly for this competition, and the results of his preparation were impressive. His interpretation shone both with technical poise and poetry — basking in the moment of performing on the Severance Hall stage with his excellent colleagues. [Read more…]

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