by Mike Telin
If you had to have musicians living above you, judging from their performance at Pilgrim Church on Sunday, October 13, cellist Darrett Adkins and pianist Cicilia Yudha are two you would want to have. Their concert, which opened Arts Renaissance Tremont’s 29th season, featured intriguing works that proved a cello recital doesn’t always need to include music by the three B’s to hold you in rapt attention.
by Mike Telin
Since its founding in 1991, Arts Renaissance Tremont (ART) has been a cultural pillar in that West Side Cleveland neighborhood. And from the beginning, the organization has made its home at the historic Pilgrim Congregational UCC. Under the tireless direction of its founder and director Chris Haff-Paluck (left, with Jinjoo Cho), with assistance from a group of dedicated board members and volunteers, ART has remained true to its vision of keeping concerts free of charge.
On Sunday, October 13 at 3:00 pm, ART will kick off its 29th season with a recital by cellist Darrett Adkins and pianist Cicilia Yudha. Their program will feature works by Janáček, Kodály, Messiaen, and Chopin.
“Twenty-nine years — who knows where all the time has gone?” Haff-Paluck said during an interview, noting that the Tremont neighborhood was very different in the early ‘90s. “There are so many restaurants and galleries now, but it wasn’t that way back then. People wanted arts programs to be happening in the neighborhood.”
by Daniel Hathaway
It’s not every day that a recently-formed ensemble gets to put a Carnegie Hall debut on its schedule, but Youngstown State University’s Dana Piano Trio — violinist Joseph Kromholz, cellist Kivie Cahn-Lipman, and pianist Cicilia Yudha — is doing just that on Friday, March 22.
As the old saw goes, the way you usually get to Carnegie Hall is to practice, practice, and practice, but this gig essentially fell into the Trio’s lap. As Yudha told us in a telephone conversation, “Our Dean just said that as part of the Dana School of Music’s 150th anniversary celebrations and the Pippino Concert Series, ‘I’d like to send you to New York.’ How about that!”
Although Yudha and Kromholz had joined the Dana faculty earlier, Cahn-Lipman only arrived in 2017, and the Trio was formed soon afterward. “Since the three of us are in residence, we’re able to do a bunch of outreach and recruitment activities with high school students, so that’s worked out very nicely.”
By way of preparation for their New York debut, the Trio will be trying out its Weill Recital Hall program in three upcoming concerts. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
Tradition or innovation, familiarity or freshness? These are and always have been false choices, as pianist Cicilia Yudha demonstrated in a concert last week. With a program spanning almost exactly three hundred years of music, Yudha concluded Arts Renaissance Tremont’s 27th season with a recital that sparkled and surprised. [Read more…]
On Thursday, December 21 at 3:00 pm, the well-known Cleveland piano pedagogue Olga Radosavljevich will be honored with an 80th Birthday Concert in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she has taught for nearly six decades. The free event will feature performances by some of her many students, including Cicilia Yudha, who studied with “Miss Olga” for eight years in the Young Artist Program, and now serves on the piano faculty at Youngstown State University.
Yudha told ClevelandClassical.com that Miss Olga’s daughter, Kathy Manker, asked her to write her mother’s biography. “I spent a few afternoons with Ms. Olga earlier this Fall and finally drew the courage to summarize her incredible journey from Yugoslavia to Cleveland and her 57-year tenure at CIM,” Yudha said. Here is the result of those interviews. [Read more…]
by Jeremy Reynolds
In addition to being the founder of one of the premiere piano competitions in the world — the predecessor of the Cleveland International Piano Competition — Robert Casadesus was one of the finest pianists of the 20th century, as well as a prolific composer. In December of 2016, Indonesian-born pianist and Youngstown State University piano professor Cicilia Yudha released an album of selected works for piano by Casadesus and his contemporary Henri Dutilleux. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
It was a bright, crisp winter afternoon this past Sunday – a good day to be out and around – and many people decided to take advantage of the mild weather to almost fill Pilgrim Church on W.14th Street, for a very attractive chamber music concert sponsored by Arts Renaissance Tremont. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
On Sunday October 4 at 3:00 pm in Pilgrim Congregational Church, Arts Renaissance Tremont (ART) will present its season opening concert with a performance by the award-winning Autana Trio, Yuri Noh, piano, Rubén Rengel, violin, and Anna Hurt, cello. The program will include Ludwig van Beethoven’s Trio in B-flat, Op. 97 (”Archduke”) and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Trio No. 2 in e, Op. 67.
The event will also mark ART’s twenty-fifth anniversary of presenting free concerts in the West Side Cleveland neighborhood. “Twenty five years, I can’t believe it,” ART’s founder and director Chris Haff- Paluck said during a telephone conversation. “It’s amazing how the series has grown and the neighborhood has changed. Many people don’t remember what Tremont was like back then.” [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Arts Renaissance Tremont crowned its 23rd season at Pilgrim Church Auditorium on Sunday afternoon, April 27 with an excellent concert of music for winds and piano featuring Cleveland Orchestra members Mary Lynch, oboe, Robert Woolfrey, clarinet, Barrick Stees, bassoon and Richard King, horn, with Youngstown State University faculty member Cicilia Yudha, piano. A new Yamaha concert grand piano was the sixth performer.
Planning a full-length concert of wind music can be tricky. The ear can grow weary no matter how fine the playing (and wind players can get tired for their own reasons). Sunday’s group made some savvy decisions, mingling two trios with a solo piece and ending with probably the best work in the wind chamber music repertoire.
Robert Woolfrey led off with Oskar Morawetz’s Clarinet Sonata from 1981. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
On Sunday, April 27 beginning at 3:00 pm in Pilgrim Congregational Church, Arts Renaissance Tremont presents a concert of chamber music for woodwinds and piano performed by Cleveland Orchestra members Mary Lynch, oboe, Robert Woolfrey, clarinet, Barrick Stees, bassoon and Richard King, horn, with Cicilia Yudha, piano.
The program includes Oskar Morawetz’s Clarinet Sonata (1981), Heinrich von Herzogenberg’s Trio in D for Oboe, Horn & Piano, op. 61, Poulenc’s Trio for Oboe, Bassoon & Piano (1926) and Mozart’s Quintet in E-flat for winds and piano, K. 452 (1784).
Cicilia Yudha, who is an Assistant Professor at the Dana School of Music Faculty at Youngstown State University and coordinator of the keyboard musicianship program, pointed out during a recent telephone conversation, “As a pianist, it is rare to play chamber music with woodwinds. There is a lot more repertoire in the piano trio and quartet area. But this music is such a joy to play and of course these players are all top notch. I’m just very happy to be doing it.”
Oboist Mary Lynch who along with Yudha spearheaded the program added, “I’m very excited about the whole program. I think it presents a good picture of the repertoire for winds and piano. And we’re all just very happy to be playing this music together and excited to bring it to people.” [Read more…]