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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.

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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.

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Leonkoro Quartet to bring lion-hearted strength to its CCMS debut on March

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By Mike Telin

Founded in Berlin in 2019, the Leonkoro Quartet adopted its brave-sounding name from the Esperanto words for “lion” and “heart” and from Astrid Lindgren’s children’s book, The Brothers Lionheart. Two brothers, Jonathan and Lukas Schwarz, man the first violin and cello positions. Second violinist Emiri Kakiuchi and violist Mayu Konoe fill out the roster of a relatively new ensemble that impressed the chamber music demimonde in April of 2022 by winning a total of ten prizes at London’s Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition.

On Tuesday evening, March 3 at 7:30, the Leonkoro Quartet will make its Cleveland debut on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series at Disciples Church, performing standard repertoire by Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Felix Mendelssohn.

I spoke with violist Mayu Konce in Columbus before the quartet’s recent engagement there, and posed questions about their repertory choices and some of the issues they’ve addressed as a new ensemble on the international concert circuit.

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Cleveland Chamber Music Society: Quinn Kelsey with Craig Ketter (Feb. 3)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s February 3 recital, presented by Hawaiian baritone Quinn Kelsey with pianist Craig Ketter, offered something both rare and reassuring: a major operatic singer heard up close, singing beautifully and without a lot of fuss.

They offered a program of early- and late-twentieth century American and English songs by Aaron Copland, Florence Price, John Alden Carpenter, Margaret Bonds, Gerald Finzi, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. From the opening notes of Copland’s “The Boatmen’s Dance,” Kelsey demonstrated a full, ringing voice that filled the room.

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Baritone Quinn Kelsey & pianist Craig Ketter revive art song at Cleveland Chamber Music Society

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by Daniel Hathaway
Bright is the ring of words
When the right man rings them,
Fair the fall of songs
When the singer sings them,
Still they are carolled and said—
On wings they are carried—
After the singer is dead
And the maker buried.
– R.L. Stevenson.

One time-honored classical music tradition — the solo voice recital — has nearly disappeared from Northeast Ohio’s concert calendar ever since the Cleveland Art Song Festival ceased operations.

Happily, that intimate art form that weaves words and music into new lyrical creations will be revived on Tuesday, February 3 at 7:30 at Disciples Church in Cleveland Heights, when the Cleveland Chamber Music Society presents Hawaiian-born baritone Quinn Kelsey and pianist Craig Ketter in recital.

Best known for his dramatic interpretation of operatic roles, Kelsey has become a go-to Verdi baritone over his decade at the Metropolitan Opera, winning high critical marks for his performances there as well as in major houses throughout the world.

But on Tuesday, rather than plumbing the depths of an opera character, Kelsey will treat the audience at Disciples to groups of English language songs set or arranged by three well-known composers with unique musical voices — plus settings of the poetry of Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes by three not-so-well-known songsmiths. [Read more…]

Takács Quartet return to Cleveland Chamber Music Society (Nov. 11)

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by Stephanie Manning

“At 50, The Takács Quartet Remains As Essential as Ever,” The New York Times declared earlier this year in an article celebrating the group’s semicentennial. We Northeast Ohioans can consider ourselves lucky that the ensemble visits the area regularly — typically as guests of the Cleveland Chamber Music Society.

David Allen’s Times profile highlighted the Quartet’s increased interest in contemporary composers, an attribute quickly confirmed when looking at their recent touring programs. This month, for example, they have been premiering Clarice Assad’s Clash all over the country.

Clash was sadly missing from the Takács’s November 11 appearance at Disciples Church in Cleveland Heights, where they presented a more standard combination of Haydn, Dvořák, and Bartók. But no matter the repertoire, the Quartet’s playing maintained that engaging quality of a group unafraid to take risks and fully express themselves.

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Belcea Quartet at Cleveland Chamber Music Society (Oct. 21)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The complete Shostakovich cycle of quartets that the Jerusalem Quartet served up last May in five well-attended performances at the Cleveland Museum of Art to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Cleveland Chamber Music Society was a hard act to follow.

CCMS allowed its patrons some variety by opening its 76th season with a September concert for violin and piano, followed by a bracing program on October 21 from the Belcea Quartet that balanced extreme textures and dissonance with an abundance of sweetness and nuance, while also producing a rich blend and a vast array of articulations. [Read more…]

James Ehnes and Orion Weiss open Cleveland Chamber Music Society season (Sept. 16)

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by Peter Feher

If James Ehnes ever decided to launch a fan club, one of the first chapters would undoubtedly be formed in Northeast Ohio.

The esteemed Canadian violinist has made occasional concerto appearances with The Cleveland Orchestra over the years, but local audiences have come to know him best through chamber performances that offer an unparalleled experience of his artistry.

This feeling of intimate familiarity united Ehnes and an enthusiastic crowd at Disciples Christian Church on Tuesday, Sept. 16, for the opening concert of the Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s 2025–26 season. [Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Music Society opens 76th season with James Ehnes & Orion Weiss

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by Daniel Hathaway

After celebrating three quarters of a century in the concert presenting business with an extended season that drew large audiences to the Art Museum for the Jerusalem Quartet’s complete Shostakovich string quartet cycle — fifteen quartets in five concerts in April — the Cleveland Chamber Music Society will return to a more normal but equally enticing season in 2025-2026.

In addition to revisits by the Belcea and Takács Quartets, perennial favorites, the society will present some relatively new ensembles: the Leonkoro and Verona Quartets and the Isidore String Quartet, two of them with guest pianists. Yaron Kohlberg — head of Piano Cleveland, the driving force behind the Cleveland International Piano Competition — will join the Verona for the Dvořák Quintet, and Jeremy Denk will collaborate with the Isidore in the Brahms Quintet. [Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Music Society Shostakovich Cycle: five concerts by the Jerusalem Quartet (Apr. 21–30)

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Reviews by Kevin McLaughlin, Daniel Hathaway, & Stephanie Manning

To celebrate its 75th anniversary, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society engaged the dauntless Jerusalem Quartet to play a complete cycle of Dmitri Shostakovich’s fifteen string quartets. The works were performed in chronological order over five evenings in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The performances were treated like an art exhibition accompanied by an elaborate, 45-page catalog full of documentation about the composer, whose life and career under the Soviet system left an indelible mark on his music. A timeline that runs along the bottom of the program pages helped put Shostakovich’s compositions in historical context. [Read more…]

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