by Daniel Hathaway
Surely it was just a coincidence that CityMusic Cleveland’s final series of concerts mostly duplicated works The Cleveland Orchestra had played the week before in the third concert of its all-Beethoven Prometheus Project at Severance Hall. The unique piece on CityMusic’s program was the Violin Concerto, which received a glowing performance by Tessa Lark and the ensemble on Sunday afternoon, May 20 in St. Noel Church in Willoughby. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Bosnian composer and accordionist Merima Kljuo gave the Cleveland premiere of her work The Sarajevo Haggadah: Music of the Book at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2015 in a version for accordion and piano. Last week she returned to Cleveland with her new, vibrant orchestration of the piece, which celebrates the miraculous journey of an elegant medieval Jewish prayer book from Spain to Bosnia. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“I have always been fascinated by the Sarajevo Haggadah, with its story and amazing history,” Bosnian-born accordionist and composer Merima Ključo told ClevelandClassical.com in a 2015 interview. “After reading Geraldine Brooks’s People of the Book, I became obsessed with the idea of a project that would musically and visually follow the Haggadah’s journey from Spain to Sarajevo.”
Dating from 14th-century Spain, the Jewish prayer book that became known as the Sarajevo Haggadah went through many hands before ending up in Bosnia, having been rescued from destruction by such unlikely figures as a Jesuit priest in Venice and a Muslim imam in Sarajevo — who hid it from the Nazis in the library of his mosque during World War II after it was smuggled out of the Bosnian National Museum by its chief librarian.
That project was presented at the Cleveland Museum of Art in its original scoring for accordion and piano in November of 2015. This week Merima Ključo will return to Cleveland for six free performances of her orchestrated version of the work with Avner Dorman and CityMusic Cleveland as part of the orchestra’s “Two Faiths: One Spirit” project. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
A native of Israel, Avner Dorman recognizes the conflict between the Jewish and Arab communities of the world, and the suffering they have felt. “And yet,” the music director of CityMusic Cleveland said in a recent interview, “I very much like all the people I know who are Muslim. Whenever we get into discussions, you really notice the commonalities more than the differences. We can’t forget that.”
This week, CityMusic Cleveland will present a series of concerts aiming to unite the Jewish and Arab communities, promote togetherness in Greater Cleveland, and emphasize the value of preserving the arts, regardless of culture. Titled “Two Faiths: One Spirit,” the series was inspired by stories of priceless religious texts that were rescued by people of other faiths.
Six free performances run from March 14-18 in Beachwood, Cleveland, Parma, Lakewood, and Elyria (see our Concert Listings for times and locations).
Needless to say, the series’ goal of unity means a lot to Dorman. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
Next week, a series of concerts by CityMusic Cleveland, led by music director Avner Dorman, will aim to unite the Jewish and Arab communities, promote togetherness in Greater Cleveland, and emphasize the value of preserving the arts — regardless of culture. Titled “Two Faiths: One Spirit,” the series was inspired by stories of priceless religious texts that were rescued by people of other faiths.
The musical centerpiece of the series is Bosnian-born Merima Ključo’s Sarajevo Haggadah: Music of the Book, featuring the composer on solo accordion. The work will receive its world premiere in a new orchestrated version commissioned by CityMusic Cleveland.
Also included on the program are works by Kareem Roustom, Behzad Ranjbaran, Tom Cohen, and Josef Bardanashvili — composers whose roots stretch from Syria to Iran, Georgia, and Israel. Six free performances run from March 14-18 in Beachwood, Cleveland, Parma, Lakewood, and Elyria (see our Concert Listings for times and locations).
by Nicholas Stevens
At performances by CityMusic Cleveland last week, principal guest conductor Stefan Willich began his comments with a terse observation: “Love is a complicated thing.” It served as a wry introduction to Richard Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, five settings of poems by the married Mathilde Wesendonck, written as Wagner (also married) pursued an affair with her. However, the statement could have served as a motto for each of the pieces on the program. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
“It is truly striking that there are so many people interested and highly proficient in both music and medicine,” conductor and physician Stefan Willich said in a recent conversation. Speaking from his home in Berlin, the artistic director of the World Doctors Orchestra first pointed out the precise structures of the two fields.
“Medicine is based on natural scientific laws and formulas, and music is based on mathematical composition. But then of course you add subjectivity and emotion. The musical interpreter will load a composition with his personality, and as a patient, you wish for a doctor that has empathy for you and makes you truly feel good caring for you. And both fields include quite extreme emotions — in medicine dealing with disease or even death, and in good art covering lots of different emotional states.”
Beginning on Wednesday, December 6 at 7:30 pm at St. Jerome Church in Collinwood, principal guest conductor Stefan Willich will lead CityMusic Cleveland in five free concerts of music by Mozart, Wagner, and Schubert, featuring concertmaster Miho Hashizume, principal violist Jonathan Bagg, and soprano Chabrelle Williams. See our Concert Listings for additional times and locations. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
In an unusual example of regifting, Avner Dorman and CityMusic Cleveland bestowed an early 80th-birthday present on John Corigliano on Friday evening, October 20 at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus: a performance of his own ‘Red Violin’ Concerto, the solo part commandingly played by Tessa Lark. The composer flew in from New York for the occasion and gave some introductory notes from the church’s ornate pulpit. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway, Jarrett Hoffman, and Mike Telin
“I knew this was John Corigliano’s 80th birthday season and I really wanted to do something special to celebrate that,” CityMusic Cleveland Artistic Director Avner Dorman said during a telephone conversation. “We thought about showing the film The Red Violin and playing the score. Then we realized that performing the concerto would be more artistically satisfying.”
CityMusic opens its 14th season when Avner Dorman leads a program that celebrates the 80th birthday of composer John Corigliano. The program will include his “The Red Violin” Concerto, featuring Tessa Lark, as well as Robert Schumann’s Overture to Genoveva and Symphony No. 3, “Rhenish.” The first of five area performances will take place on Wednesday, October 18 at 7:30 pm at St. Jerome Church in Cleveland. Click here for additional time, days, and locations.
“I’m excited about this program, and the fact that we managed to put it all together is extraordinary,” Dorman said. “I’m sure this is going to be a huge hit with our audiences. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
On Sunday, May 19 at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple, CityMusic Cleveland, under the direction of Avner Dorman, performed an excellent concert that brought insight into pop icon David Bowie’s many inspirations. Bowie’s own songs, juxtaposed with Richard Strauss’s “Im Abendrot” (In the Twilight) from his Four Last Songs, were the highlight of the concert. [Read more…]
