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Lysander Piano Trio make their Cleveland Chamber Music Society debut

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by Stephanie Manning

Of all of Shakespeare’s works, Midsummer Night’s Dream is perhaps the most musically influential. It inspired Felix Mendelssohn to write an overture and incidental music and Benjamin Britten to pen an entire opera.

For three Juilliard School students in 2009, it was the character of Lysander that intrigued them specifically.

“The most famous line by Lysander is, ‘The course of true love never did run smooth,’” pianist Liza Stepanova said in a recent interview. “We thought that was a really nice motto, because a chamber group is kind of like a marriage.

“You go through ups and downs, you travel together, you have different projects together. Some things are more successful than others, and so you just have to remind yourself that the course of true love never did run smooth.”

Thankfully, the Lysander Piano Trio are still playing together more than 15 years later — so one could say things have gone more smoothly than not. Stepanova, violinist Itamar Zorman, and cellist James Kim will make their Cleveland Chamber Music Society debut on November 17 at Disciples Church in Cleveland Heights. Tickets are available online. [Read more…]

Escher String Quartet at Cleveland Chamber Music Society (Oct. 13)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The Escher String Quartet — violinists Adam Barnett-Hart and Bryan Lee, violist Pierre Lapointe, and cellist Brook Speltz — presented three very different works in its Cleveland Chamber Music Society debut on October 13 at the Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church.

Their approach might be summed up as “combine and conquer” — four distinct musical personalities joined in a rich, unified sound, punctuated by flashes of individual intensity.

They began with Haydn’s String Quartet in G major, Op. 76, No. 1, full of his characteristic mischief. Three emphatic opening chords suggested a theatrical announcement, followed by a fugue-like game of hide-and-seek. The players relished Haydn’s jokes, giving the sudden unisons and biting dissonances plenty of juice.

[Read more…]

Escher Quartet to make Chamber Music Society debut

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by Mike Telin

Formed in 2005, the Escher String Quartet is no stranger to Northeast Ohio. The ensemble has made numerous appearances on Akron’s Tuesday Musical series and has served as the quartet for chamber music rounds of the Cleveland International Piano Competition.

One series the Escher has not yet performed on is that of the Cleveland Chamber Music Society.

On Tuesday, October 13 at 7:30 pm at the Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church, The Escher Quartet — Adam Barnett-Hart & Bryan Lee, violins, Pierre Lapointe, viola, and Brook Speltz, cello — will make their long-awaited CCMS debut. Tickets are available online.

“We’re thrilled to be making our debut on one of the great chamber music series in America,” cellist Brook Speltz said during a recent telephone conversation. “We were happy when the date came through because we thought, ‘You know what? We’re overdue to play on that series.’”

[Read more…]

Trio of local musicians launch Chamber Music Society’s season 77 (Sept. 9)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The Cleveland Chamber Music Society opened its 77th season on Wednesday, September 9, to a large and lively house at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium.

The headliners were three distinguished Cleveland musicians — Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster Joel Link, principal horn Nathaniel Silberschlag, and pianist Dawoon Chung — and a program of works by Reinhold Glière, Gabriel Fauré, and Johannes Brahms.

Silberschlag and Chung began with four selections from Ukrainian-born Glière’s Op. 35. Written in 1908, they appear curiously older, with little obvious Russian color. At times they sound as though they belong to an earlier Central European salon tradition — especially the old-world sway of the Valse triste and the broad, songful lines of the Nocturne and Intermezzo. The latter were written for horn, while the Romance and Valse triste began as clarinet pieces.

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Cleveland Chamber Music Society opens 77th season on September 9

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland’s oldest Chamber Music Series will ring in its 77th season on Wednesday, September 9 at 7:30 pm in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art with a program featuring a trio of prominent Northeastern Ohio musicians.

Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster Joel Link and principal horn Nathaniel Silberschlag will join pianist Dawoon Chung for Johannes Brahms’ Trio for Piano, Violin, and Horn in E-flat, Op. 40.

Earlier in the evening, Link and Chung will play Gabriel Fauré’s Sonata in A, Op. 13, and Silberschlag and Chung will put horn and piano together for excerpts from Reinhold Glière’s Four Romances, op. 35.

Link was appointed to the Orchestra in July 2025, while retaining his position as first violinist of the Dover Quartet and as a faculty member of the Curtis Institute of Music and Northwestern University. [Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Music Society: Isidore String Quartet with Jeremy Denk (May 19)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Presented by the Cleveland Chamber Music Society at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on May 19, the Isidore String Quartet — violinists Adrian Steele & Phoenix Avalon, violist Devin Moore, and cellist Joshua McClendon — offered a program that moved from Haydn through Ligeti to Brahms with the addition of pianist Jeremy Denk.

Haydn’s Op. 76, No. 4 (“Sunrise”) begins with a first-violin line unfurling over softly lit inner voices as the quartet waited for daylight. But when Haydn quickly broadened the texture into something fuller and more forceful, the quartet’s delicacy came at the expense of expressive weight.

The second movement opened almost inaudibly, the players hardly breathing, as if afraid of being discovered. By the Menuetto, the ensemble had loosened up, swaying with Haydn’s unexpectedly intricate rhythms, not waiting to be asked to dance. In the finale’s fugue, lines passed so smoothly from one player to the next that the seams disappeared, leaving only music. [Read more…]

Kohlberg joins Verona Quartet for Chamber Music Society concert (Apr. 28)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Most often, ensembles hosted by the Cleveland Chamber Music Society are on tour and get picked up and dropped off at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. But for their April 28 performance at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Verona Quartet were able to avoid all the vagaries of modern air travel — TSA searches, lost luggage, hassles over transporting cellos, and the inevitable flight delays.

Based at Oberlin Conservatory, where the Verona are the resident quartet, they were only 45 minutes away by car from the concert venue, where they joined pianist Yaron Kohlberg in a fascinating program of works by Alessandro Scarlatti, Phillip Glass, Leoš Janaček, and Antonín Dvořák — not your usual three-course string quartet menu.

[Read more…]

Isidore String Quartet and Jeremy Denk collaborate for Cleveland Chamber Music Society season finale

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by Stephanie Manning

When the Isidore String Quartet performed in Northeast Ohio last year, they faced some unusual circumstances. On the way to their Tuesday Musical engagement with pianist Jeremy Denk, violist Devin Moore came down with a painful case of strep throat, and the group had to find a substitute player at the last minute.

In their more than three years of touring, the Isidore have faced obstacles like flight delays and other illnesses. But “ that was actually the first time that we’ve had to call someone else in,” said violinist Phoenix Avalon. Eva Kennedy, the violist of the Callisto Quartet, drove up from Columbus in time for the day-of rehearsal and soundcheck. ” It was very last-minute, but we were glad that she could come in.”

Next Tuesday, the Isidore will return to the area — with all four members thankfully in good health — for their 7:30 pm concert at the Cleveland Museum of Art, presented by the Cleveland Chamber Music Society. The Juilliard-trained group will present quartets by Haydn and Ligeti and reunite with Jeremy Denk for Brahms’ Quintet for Piano and Strings in f minor. Tickets for the May 19 concert are available online. [Read more…]

Verona Quartet to make its CCMS debut: a conversation with violinist Jonathan Ong

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by Mike Telin

After winning top prizes at the Wigmore Hall, Melbourne, Osaka, M-Prize, and Fischoff International Chamber Music Competitions, as well as the 2015 Concert Artists Guild Competition, the Verona Quartet have enjoyed a quick rise to the upper echelon of the chamber music world.

Committed to mentoring the upcoming generations of musicians, the Quartet serves on the faculty of Oberlin College and Conservatory, ENCORE! Chamber Music, and as Artistic Directors of the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance.

On Tuesday, April 28 at 7:30 pm in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Verona Quartet — Jonathan Ong and Dorothy Ro (violins), Abigail Rojansky (viola), and Jonathan Dormand (cello) — will make their Cleveland Chamber Music Society debut. Their program features music by Scarlatti, Glass, and Janáček. The ensemble will be joined by pianist Yaron Kohlberg for Antonín Dvořák’s Piano Quintet in A. Tickets are available online.

[Read more…]

Leonkoro Quartet traces lineage in Cleveland Chamber Music Society debut (Mar. 3)

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by Peter Feher

Out of Vienna is the title of the Leonkoro Quartet’s latest album, but that phrase could easily stand in for all of the ensemble’s recent performances.

Never mind the specialized focus of the recording, which centers on Second Viennese School composers Alban Berg and Anton Webern. In a program of entirely standard repertoire — Haydn, Beethoven, and Felix Mendelssohn were on the bill for the Quartet’s Cleveland debut — the influence of a certain city proved just as inescapable.

Of course, classical music in the 21st century thrives on cosmopolitanism. The young Leonkoros are based in Berlin, having formed at conservatory there in 2019, and they’ve cultivated utmost cohesion and top-level technique. Worldwide attention came after they swept London’s Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition in 2022.

[Read more…]

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