Chloe Fedor Archives - Cleveland Classical

Apollo’s Fire: cheerful collaboration and “Virtuoso Brilliance” (Feb. 9)

February 13, 2025 by Stephanie Manning

by Stephanie Manning

On Super Bowl Sunday — a day that brings out plenty of competitive spirit — spending the afternoon with Apollo’s Fire felt like the perfect balance. In the few hours before “The Big Game” on February 9, those of us listening to the music in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights were all rooting for the same team.

The Baroque chamber orchestra performs in a way that values collaboration over competition, especially in a conductorless outing like this one. “Virtuoso Brilliance,” a program heard in Akron, Rocky River, and Cleveland Heights, united both musicians and audience in concertos by Antonio Vivaldi and Georg Philipp Telemann. [Read more…]

fp Creative’s Long Distance: live performance and collaboration

May 5, 2020 by Jarrett Hoffman

by Jarrett Hoffman

The response to the pandemic from fp Creative has been both sensitive and — well, creative. The organization has devoted a page of its website to relief fund resources, and has divided its programming into two categories of “Long Distance” offerings: live performances, and new artistic collaborations taking place over the web.

“Collabs” is the name they’ve coined for the latter endeavor. In early April, they sent out a request for submissions of short recordings from instrumentalists, poets, and sound designers “to capture the sounds of their new daily,” as the organization writes on its website. A handful of producers and composers then sampled those submissions, weaving them into pieces of music.

The first — and very striking — release came on Friday, May 1, and is available to stream here. It takes the form of an album in collage style, with eight short tracks representing a spectrum of compositional styles from Will Cayanan, Erica MacLeod, Richard Graham (a.k.a. Signals Under Tests), Seyu, Devin Hinzo, and Graham Rosen.

[Read more…]

VOCES8’s Oberlin debut: a delightful 20th anniversary program (Oct. 28)

by Stephanie Manning

VOCES8’s 20th anniversary called for plenty of celebration and plenty of humor.

When the British a cappella group visited the Oberlin Artist Recital Series on October 28, they brought a program of audience favorites that delighted the sold-out crowd in Finney Chapel. Known for their ethereal voices and crystal clear harmonies, the octet demonstrated all that and more as they bridged the sacred and secular in “Songs From 20 Years.”

This two-decade milestone gave good reason to celebrate not only the singers, but also their longtime arranger-in-residence, Jim Clements. Responsible for some of the group’s most requested pieces, Clements is like “the secret burger sauce in the Big Mac,” joked tenor Blake Morgan.

[Read on…]

Guitarist Leonela Alejandro makes engaging Cleveland debut at CCGS (Oct. 25)

by Stephanie Manning

When an artist is on tour for months at a time, it can be hard not to feel homesick. Leonela Alejandro knows that experience well. Her current cross-country tour — celebrating her win at the 2024 Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competition — began in September and continues through next May.

That’s a lot of time away from Puerto Rico, where the 25-year-old guitarist grew up and began her musical education. So, as she explained to the audience at the Maltz Performing Arts Center on October 25, her Cleveland program brought a little bit of her home country with her. Presented by the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, Alejandro’s local debut brought out her most engaging abilities as a performer, making the case that she is a young artist to watch. [Read on…]

No Exit opens season with “American Descent” at Praxis Fiber Workshop (Oct. 25)

by Mike Telin

There was not an open seat to be had at Praxis Fiber Workshop on Saturday, October 25 when the adventurous new music ensemble No Exit began their 17th season with a program of four thoroughly engaging works.

As a prelude to the program, James Rhodes presented two movements from Garth Knox’s Viola Spaces, a collection of eight etudes each of which focus on an extended technique.

No. 2, “Ghosts,” examines the technique of sul tasto — on the fingerboard. Beginning with a pitchless bowing on the strings, Rhodes brilliantly produced spooky, breathy, brushing sounds. In No. 6, “Harmonic Horizons,” Rhodes took listeners on a tour of the instrument’s harmonic series. Here he produced an interesting mix of straight-tones, double-stops, trills, and slides in every register of the viola.

[Read on…]

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