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Sibbi Bernhardsson brings Mozart’s “most perfect” violin concerto to CityMusic Cleveland

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by Stephanie Manning

Enduringly popular ever since it was written in 1775, Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 is a staple in any violinist’s catalog.

“ It’s a concerto that we all have to learn and teach,” Sibbi Bernhardsson said in a recent interview. “But this will actually be my first time performing it with an orchestra, so I’m really, really excited.”

The violinist will join the CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra for a series of free performances beginning on December 12 at venues around the city. Conductor John McLaughlin Williams will lead the group in a program that also includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and Leó Weiner’s Serenade for Small Orchestra. More information on locations and times is available here.

Bernhardsson, who serves on the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory, has performed with CityMusic twice before, once as a member of the Pacifica Quartet and once as part of the group’s chamber music series. But he’s known about the ensemble for more than 20 years.  [Read more…]

CityMusic Cleveland: Brouwer’s Viola Concerto with Eliesha Nelson in Rocky River (Oct. 27)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The peripatetic CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra was founded with the admirable mission of bringing free performances of classical music to various corners of metropolitan Cleveland.

Having already taken their interesting program of works by J.S. Bach, Margaret Brouwer, and Johannes Brahms to Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights, St. Noel Church in Willoughby Hills, and the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus in Slavic Village, CityMusic ended its most recent progress around town at Our Lady of Angels in Rocky River on Sunday afternoon, October 27. The performance attracted a large audience. [Read more…]

CityMusic: Vivaldi recomposed at St. Stan’s (Mar. 16)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

By the end of violinist Laura Hamilton’s and CityMusic Cleveland’s convincing performance of Max Richter’s Four Seasons Recomposed (after A. Vivaldi) on Saturday, March 16 at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus, you had the uncanny feeling that what you were hearing was not so much a new piece but an old piece in a dream.

In each of the twelve movements Richter brings Vivaldi in and out of focus by isolating and repeating melodic fragments against an attenuated accompaniment. In the slow movements more of the melody is preserved — the Largo in “Winter” for example — but the original harmonic framework is altered. [Read more…]

CityMusic Cleveland: Laura Hamilton plays Four Seasons Recomposed

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by Mike Telin

Without a doubt, The Four Seasons — that group of four violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi — is one of the most recognizable works in the classical music canon. And like many, composer Max Richter fell in love with it as a child, as he told NPR’s Audie Cornish in an interview.

“It’s beautiful, charming music with a great melody and wonderful colors. Then, later on, as I became more musically aware — literate, studied music and listened to a lot of music — I found it more difficult to love it. We hear it everywhere — when you’re on hold, you hear it in the shopping center, in advertising; it’s everywhere. For me, the record and the project are trying to reclaim the piece, to fall in love with it again.”

That project he’s referring to is his The Four Seasons Recomposed (after A. Vivaldi). On Thursday, March 14 at 7:30 pm at Fairmount Presbyterian Church, violinist Laura Hamilton (pictured) will join CityMusic Cleveland in Richter’s inventive re-imagining of Vivaldi’s masterpiece. Under the direction of guest conductor Annunziata Tomaro, the program, “Rediscovered Classics,” will also include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2. The program will be repeated on Friday at 7:30 at Lakewood Congregational Church, Saturday at 7:30 at Shrine of St. Stanislaus, and Sunday at 4:00 at St. Noel Catholic Church. All performances are free.

[Read more…]

CityMusic Cleveland: “Symphonie Concertante” (Sept. 21)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The concert by CityMusic Cleveland on Thursday, September 21 in Fairmount Presbyterian Church was a reminder of two things: that there is an abundance of appealing music yet to be heard or played out, and there are exceptional performers in Cleveland ready to play it. The consistently splendid CityMusic (now in its twentieth year) maintained its high standard with a program of infrequently heard works by George Walker, Joseph Bologne, Tōru Takemitsu, and W.A. Mozart, aided by guest solo violinists Kyung Sun Lee and Jung-Min Amy Lee (pictured at another venue).

Walker’s Lyric for Strings has the quiet solemnity of Barber’s famous Adagio for Strings, and like that piece, it started life as the second movement from an early string quartet. Walker added the title Lament (later Lyric for Strings) and dedicated it as an elegy to his grandmother. From the first notes the ensemble, led by concertmaster Laura Hamilton, conveyed the right mood and established a bath of tonal beauty that benefitted every piece to come.

[Read more…]

CityMusic Cleveland: three concerts with clarinetist Daniel Gilbert

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by Jarrett Hoffman

In three concerts over the next three months from CityMusic Cleveland, one particular instrument, and one particular player, crop up several times.

Clarinetist Daniel Gilbert will be featured in “Explorations for Clarinet, Strings and Piano” (February 25), “The Visionary Clarinet” (March 16-19), and “Clarinet Dialogues” (May 13) — the outer two programs being chamber music collaborations, the middle one a solo appearance with the CityMusic Orchestra. Details of times and locations can be found here.

As is often the case with the best chamber music gatherings, family and friends play an important role here. The February program was put together by Gilbert and his wife, pianist Donna Lee, and it features a commissioned work titled Recitations and Dedications by a longtime friend of his: Gregg August (pictured below).
 [Read more…]

CityMusic chamber series:
composer Akua Dixon on 
Justice, Equality & Freedom

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by Emmy Hensley

“I’ve been composing things, in a sense, all my life,” cellist and composer Akua Dixon said during a recent interview. “As an African American musician growing up studying classical music, I feel that I can offer a specific view that not many people have thought about.” 

Commissioned by CityMusic Cleveland, her string quartet We the People will be premiered on Friday, November 18 at 7:00 pm at Praxis Fiber Workshop by violinists Susan Britton and Eunho Kim, violist Yael Senamaud-Cohen, and cellist Trevor Kazarian.

The free concert, titled “Perspectives for String Quartet,” reflects on the theme of Justice, Equality, and Freedom. The program also includes Arvo Pärt’s Psalom, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s Pisachi (Reveal): Six Epitomes for String Quartet, and Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F.

Writing We the People has served as an opportunity for Dixon to reevaluate what justice, equality, and freedom have meant throughout history. “Everything is a matter of opinion, and there are two sides to each coin,” she said. “When I started thinking about the theme, I looked into the Constitution’s Preamble. I read about the intent of setting up this particular democracy, as well as the interpretation of it by the people who founded it — and those who were not included in it. I feel that it’s a great time to have dialogue and to listen to the side of so many people of color and women — all the people that haven’t had a chance — and what they have to say about these topics.”

[Read more…]

CityMusic Cleveland:
clarinet quintets old & new,
traditional & non-traditional

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by Jarrett Hoffman

A clarinet and a string quartet are the traditional components of a clarinet quintet, an instrumentation that has spawned widely performed works by composers such as Mozart, Brahms, and Coleridge-Taylor.

But after CityMusic Cleveland clarinetist Ellen Breakfield-Glick reached out to Margaret Brouwer about the possibility of writing a new clarinet quintet, the composer considered the possibilities, noting to herself that she had already written one in 2005.

“I’m all about sounds and colors,” Brouwer said during a recent interview. “That’s one reason I wanted to have percussion — I thought it would give me a lot of new colors.”

Commissioned by CityMusic and inspired by the theme for the ensemble’s 2021-22 season — “Justice, Equality, Hope” — Brouwer’s Justice March for the unconventional combination of clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and percussion will receive its premiere on Saturday, April 23 at 7:00 pm at Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus.

[Read more…]

CityMusic Cleveland:
the poetry of Weatherspoon
& an ode to Slavic Village

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by Jarrett Hoffman

The next program from CityMusic Cleveland was dreamed up by Miho Hashizume, and stems from two of the violinist’s experiences over the past few years: teaching strings in Slavic Village, and encountering the poetry of Cleveland-born writer and activist Weatherspoon.

Through commissions from CityMusic, that author’s texts have been set to music by Jasmine Barnes and Jessica Meyer in works for string quartet and soprano that will be heard for the first time — the latest of several new pieces by women composers that have been premiered during the organization’s 2021-22 season.

The program, titled “Slavic Village Then and Now,” also includes music by a pair of Czech composers: Antonín Dvořák and, by ancestry, Cleveland-born Charles Rychlik, who lived on Fleet Avenue in Slavic Village, and who crossed paths with Dvořák during studies at the Prague Conservatory.

Performances will take place on Friday, April 8 at Lakewood Congregational Church and Sunday, April 10 at Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus, both at 7:00 pm. Admission is free — RSVP’s encouraged — and a livestream option has been added for Friday’s concert.

[Read more…]

CityMusic Cleveland with Groundworks at St. Stan’s (Feb. 27)

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by Peter Feher

Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time is already a production in itself. The music alone, not to mention the circumstances of its composition, is a lot to untangle.

CityMusic Cleveland brought out the complexities of the piece in a multimedia performance on February 27 that incorporated dance, cinematography, and even the atmosphere of the venue.

A long white sheet hung from the vault to the floor and obscured the altar at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus on Sunday. The setting was sacred, and Messiaen’s inspiration was pointedly religious (his work quotes from the Book of Revelation), but there was something secular to the setup. [Read more…]

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