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Cleveland Chamber Choir: “Holidays from the Iberian Peninsula” (Dec. 16)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

A gorgeous and frequently surprising offering of Christmas and Hanukkah music from Renaissance Spain and Portugal was the focus of Cleveland Chamber Choir’s program “Holidays from the Iberian Peninsula” on Saturday, December 16 in First Baptist Church of Greater Cleveland.

Voices and instruments resonated in this grand space without losing focus. For people who wonder why the Renaissance cultivated an unadorned vocal style that did not favor thick vibrato, this concert offered an explanation: the music of the era was conceived for spaces like this one, where voices resound naturally, and words come through clearly. Under the direction of Artistic Director Gregory Ristow, tempos took on a certain speech-like freedom that gave rightful primacy to the words. The projection and translation of texts above the stage also helped to convey meaning.

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Cleveland Chamber Choir: 
“Holidays from the Iberian Peninsula”

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by Mike Telin

“I can’t count the number of holiday programs I have conducted in my life,” Greg Ristow said during a telephone conversation. “But I think I’m more excited about this one than any I’ve ever conducted because the music is all so fun — there’s no other way to put it.”

On Friday, December 15 at 8:00 pm in Oberlin’s Fairchild Chapel, Ristow will lead the Cleveland Chamber Choir in “Holidays from the Iberian Peninsula.” The program includes works by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Matteo Flecha el Viejo, Vicente Lusitano, and Salamone Rossi, as well as music from the Sephardic Jewish tradition. The free program will be repeated on Saturday the 16th at 7:00 pm at First Baptist Church of Greater Cleveland.

While the concert will feature many audience favorites, Ristow noted that it also includes a number of long-hidden gems, including Flecha’s La Bomba, which opens the program. “He wrote in a genre we call ensalada, the Spanish word for salad, because it is as if you take snippets of madrigals, snippets of church polyphony, and snippets of Renaissance dance, and put them all together in a giant salad bowl and shake them up. And the result is this delightful, constantly changing mix of styles.”

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Cleveland Chamber Choir & Lakewood High singers: Considering Matthew Shepard at Trinity Cathedral (Oct. 22)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Young Matthew Shepard’s iconic suffering and death in Wyoming 25 years ago have inspired a number of social, political, and artistic initiatives, including Craig Hella Johnson’s “passion oratorio” Considering Matthew Shepard, which was first performed in 2016.

In 2023, some 40 organizations will have performed the nearly two-hour work, among them Gregory Ristow’s Cleveland Chamber Choir, who were joined by the Lakewood High School Symphonic Mixed Choir and an instrumental ensemble from the Local 4 Music Fund in an affecting Sunday afternoon concert at Trinity Cathedral on October 22. (An earlier performance was given the day before in Avon Lake).

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Cleveland Chamber Choir: Considering Matthew Shepard

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by Mike Telin

Statement from President Joe Biden on the 25th Anniversary of the Tragic Death of Matthew Shepard:

October 12, 2023

Twenty-five years ago today, Matthew Shepard lost his life to a brutal act of hate and violence that shocked our nation and the world. The week prior, Matthew had been viciously attacked in a horrific anti-gay hate crime and left to die – simply for being himself.

Matthew’s tragic and senseless murder shook the conscience of the American people. And his courageous parents, Judy and Dennis Shepard, turned Matthew’s memory into a movement, galvanizing millions of people to combat the scourge of anti-LGBTQI+ hate and violence in America.

On October 6, 1998 Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, accepted a ride home from two men at the Fireside Lounge in Laramie. Instead, Shepard was driven to a remote area where he was pistol-whipped, tortured, tied to a fence, and left for dead. Shepard died six days later from brain damage.

Shepard’s murder would later become the inspiration for Craig Hella Johnson’s fusion oratorio Considering Matthew Shepard.

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Composers Guild & Cleveland Chamber Choir join forces (Apr. 2)

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by Daniel Hathaway

When the Cleveland Composers Guild added the requirement of writing a vocal piece to its collegiate composition contest in 2019 and generated only a single entry — impressive as that piece was — the idea was born for dedicating an entire year to vocal music.

The choral side of that theme came to fruition on Sunday, April 2 in Drinko Hall at Cleveland State University, when the Guild collaborated with Cleveland Chamber Choir in a program designed and led by CCC acting director Gregory Ristow that successfully combined new pieces by Northeast Ohio composers with existing works, and in one case brought a new wrinkle to a well-known choral cycle.

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Composers Guild joins Cleveland Chamber Choir for Joint Concert

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by Daniel Hathaway

On Sunday, April 4 at 4 pm in Drinko Hall at Cleveland State University, Cleveland Composers Guild will join  Cleveland Chamber Choir for a program that combines new works by Northeast Ohio choral composers with masterworks from the last five centuries.

I recently met up on Zoom with Chamber Choir interim music director Gregory Ristow and Composers Guild chair Margi Griebling-Haigh to learn more about this Sunday’s concert.

Daniel Hathaway: It takes two to tango, but usually when two organizations end up collaborating, the original idea came from one of them. Who instigated this project?

Margi Griebling-Haigh: Neither of us was in a decision-making capacity when the idea first came up — which I believe was in a brainstorming session for the 2019 season. Probably somebody said, ‘Hey, I’ve heard that Cleveland Chamber Choir is terrific. Let’s work with them.’ So I’m pretty sure we approached them for the first concert. [Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Choir: “Of Sound Mind” at the Maltz (Feb.19)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Since it made its impressive debut in 2015, Scott MacPherson’s Cleveland Chamber Choir has enlivened the choral music scene in Northeast Ohio with superb performances of carefully curated, interestingly-themed programs that so far have added more than 32 new commissioned works to the repertoire.

That tradition is now continuing under the leadership of Gregory Ristow, associate professor of conducting and director of vocal ensembles at Oberlin, who has been appointed acting artistic director of the ensemble following the mid-season announcement of MacPherson’s retirement.

At the Maltz Performing Arts Center on Sunday afternoon, February 19, the Choir, whose tagline is “more than music,” presented Of Sound Mind: From Darkness into Light, a program that “explores the universality of grief and sorrow, helping us to embrace our common humanity in the struggles we individually and collectively experience.” [Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Choir: a conversation with Gregory Ristow

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by Daniel Hathaway

The next pair of concerts by Cleveland Chamber Choir this weekend will be led by Gregory Ristow, associate professor of conducting and director of vocal ensembles at Oberlin Conservatory, who has been appointed acting artistic director of the ensemble following the mid-season announcement of founding director Scott MacPherson’s retirement.

The program, “Of Sound Mind: From Darkness into Light,” explores the universality of grief and sorrow, helping us to embrace our common humanity in the struggles we individually and collectively experience. Free performances will take place on Saturday, February 18 at 7:30 pm at St. Noel Church in Willoughby Hills and on Sunday, February 19 at 3:00 pm at the Maltz Performing Arts Center in Cleveland. A pre-concert talk with Oberlin musicologist Charles Edward McGuire will begin 30 minutes prior to each performance.

After their Cleveland concerts, the Choir will perform at the 2023 National Conference of the American Choral Directors Association in Cincinnati later this month. Of the hundreds of choirs from across the country that auditioned, CCC was one of 28 choirs invited to perform, and will send 32 singers to perform two 25-minute performances to thousands of attendees.

I reached Gregory Ristow by telephone to chat about the repertoire for this weekend, and began by asking how much input he had into the program. [Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Choir: Winter Carols & Lullabies 

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by Mike Telin

At this time of year, light takes on an important role in our lives. Hanukkah is known as the Festival of Lights. The Winter Solstice marks the beginning of longer days and shorter nights. And festive lights are always in abundance during the Christmas season. “The question behind the programmatic choices for this concert was: What does light truly sound like?” Jelani Watkins said during a recent telephone conversation.

On Friday December 16 at 7:30 pm at St. Sebastian Church in Akron, Watkins will lead the Cleveland Chamber Choir in Winter Carols and Lullabies. The concert features old and new works that offer hope during the holiday season. The program will be repeated on Saturday at 7:00 pm at St. Peter’s Church in Cleveland and Sunday at 4:00 pm at Disciples Christian Church in Cleveland Heights. The performances are free.

“In various religions, traditions, and cultures, light is often used to symbolize hope,” Watkins said, “and I wanted to explore the many concepts of light, and how those concepts are told through stories and music during the holiday season. [Read more…]

“Heaven and Earth” at the Church of the Covenant (Oct. 8)

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by Mike Telin

Wonderful things can happen when two accomplished ensembles collaborate. Such was the case on Saturday, October 8, when the Cleveland Chamber Choir and the BlueWater Chamber Orchestra joined forces at the Church of the Covenant in a program titled “Heaven and Earth.” The result was spectacular.

The program featured Gwyneth Walker’s The Golden Harp (1999) and Beethoven’s Mass in C. At first glance the two works appear to have little in common: Walker sets the words of Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore and Beethoven sets the text of the Latin mass. Still, the colorful, expressive music in each provides a directness to the text that takes the listener on an emotional journey.

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