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Conductor Kahchun Wong makes Cleveland Orchestra debut this week

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by Mike Telin

When visa issues prevented conductor François-Xavier Roth from leading this week’s Cleveland Orchestra concerts, the door opened for Kahchun Wong.

On Thursday, April 14 at 7:30 pm, the Singaporean conductor will make his Severance Music Center debut with a concert featuring Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with Christian Tetzlaff, and Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta. The program will be repeated on Friday at 11:00 am and Saturday at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

What were his first thoughts when he got the call telling him that he was needed in Cleveland? “Honestly, I didn’t have time to be nervous. All I could think about were all of the logistical matters,” the 35-year-old said during a recent telephone conversation.

With one residence in Japan — he is the principal guest conductor of the Japan Philharmonic — and another residence in Germany — he is the chief conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra — his first task was to locate his scores. “It wasn’t until I was on the flight that I thought, oh my, I’m going to conduct The Cleveland Orchestra.” [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Tetzlaff & Metzmacher (Oct. 25)

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by Daniel Hathaway

It doesn’t require close proximity to Halloween to make the combination of Webern, Berg, and Schoenberg sound a bit scary for some potential concertgoers. That might account for the slim Thursday audience at Severance Hall on October 25, when Ingo Metzmacher and Christian Tetzlaff visited music of the Second Viennese School with The Cleveland Orchestra. Those who came got an earful of ravishing music fully as expressive as Brahms, just in a different way. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra: a conversation with Ingo Metzmacher

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by Mike Telin

Good things come to those who wait. And when German conductor Ingo Metzmacher returns to the Severance Hall podium on Thursday, October 25 at 7:30 pm, he will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a program he has been waiting to conduct for a very long time.

“When we agreed that Christian Tetzlaff would play the Berg Violin Concerto, I thought — here’s my chance,” Metzmacher said during a telephone conversation. “I said, how about combining that with the Webern Passacaglia, which is a wonderful piece, and Schoenberg’s Pelléas and Mélisande after intermission? And they accepted. I’m thrilled because it’s been a dream of mine to combine these pieces into one program.” Metzmacher’s “dream program” will be repeated on Saturday, October 27 at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

While all three works are by composers of the Second Viennese School, a group that comprised Schoenberg along with his students and associates, Metzmacher noted that Pelléas (1903) and the Passacaglia (1908) were both written before those composers had abandoned Romanticism. “They come from before the break so to speak,” he said. “Both pieces end in d minor, so there is a link from the first to the last piece on the program.”

[Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Music Society: Tetzlaff Quartet at Plymouth (Nov. 14)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Tetzlaff QuartetThe distinguished German violinist Christian Tetzlaff has visited Northeast Ohio several times recently as soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra and to appear on the Oberlin Artist Recital Series. On Tuesday, November 14, he returned to town in a different role — as primo violin with his quartet in a remarkable concert on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society Series at Plymouth Church. (Since this photo was taken, the violinist has acquired both a Van Dyke and a ponytail.) [Read more…]

CCMS: Tetzlaff Quartet to make Cleveland debut — a conversation with violinist Elisabeth Kufferath

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by Daniel Hathaway

Tetzlaff QuartetGerman violinist Christian Tetzlaff has appeared several times recently in Northeast Ohio, as soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom and Severance Hall, and in a solo recital on the Oberlin Artist Recital Series. On Tuesday, November 14, he’ll pay us another visit, bringing his string quartet to the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series at Plymouth Church for its Cleveland debut. Tetzlaff will join violinist Elisabeth Kufferath, violist Hanna Weinmeister, and his cellist sister Tanja Tetzlaff in a program of quartets by Mozart, Berg, and Schubert.

Speaking by telephone from her home in Hannover, Elisabeth Kufferath said she’s excited to return to Cleveland after many years. [Read more…]

Oberlin Artist Recital Series: violinist Christian Tetzlaff (October 30)

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by Daniel Hathaway

TETZLAFF-ChristianIt takes a special artist to hold an audience completely in thrall for an hour and twenty minutes. Such an artist would be Christian Tetzlaff, who stood all alone with his violin on the stage of Oberlin’s Finney Chapel last Friday evening, charming a large audience with solo works by Eugène Ysaÿe, Johann Sebastian Bach, György Kurtag, and Béla Bartók. [Read more…]

Oberlin Artist Recital Series: a conversation with German violinist Christian Tetzlaff

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by Mike Telin

TETZLAFF-ChristianGerman violinist Christian Tetzlaff never shies away from a challenge. He made his debut with The Cleveland Orchestra at the age of 22, playing the daunting concerto by Arnold Schoenberg. Tetzlaff’s most recent area performance in May of this year, also with The Cleveland Orchestra, featured the violinist in Jörg Widmann’s concerto, a physically taxing work written for him in 2007.

Tetzlaff will return to Northeast Ohio on Friday, October 30 at 8:00 pm in Finney Chapel on the campus of Oberlin College for a performance of challenging works for solo violin. The concert, presented as part of Oberlin’s Artist Recital Series, now celebrating its 138th season, will include Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonata, Op. 27, No. 1 in g, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonata No. 3 in C, BWV 1005, selections from György Kurtág’s Signs, Games and Messages, and Béla Bartók’s Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: Hindemith, Widmann & Dvořák with Christian Tetzlaff & Franz Welser-Möst (May 14)

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by Daniel Hathaway

TCO-FWM-(Mastroianni)Franz Welser-Möst returned to the Severance Hall podium on Thursday, May 14 to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a dynamic concert of music by Paul Hindemith, Jörg Widmann and Antonín Dvořák. Though the marketing department successfully advertised Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony as the main attraction (resulting in a large turnout for a Thursday evening), Christian Tetzlaff’s riveting performance of Widmann’s Violin Concerto was the most musically intriguing entry on the program, with The Orchestra’s reading of Hindemith’s Concert Music for Strings and Brass not far behind. [Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra Fridays@7 (May 15)

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by Jarrett Hoffman

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A good party doesn’t sit. It moves — from room to room, topic to topic, different people getting to tell their good joke.

Now imagine a party like that, but in a palace. Think golden handrails, spacious rooms, drinks poured and legs dancing, and good music. Think Gatsby.

Or think Severance Hall on Friday night, May 15th. The Cleveland Orchestra’s last Fridays@7 concert of the season featured four musical acts in four rooms, including one last party in the gilded Grand Foyer.

[Read more…]

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