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Cleveland Chamber Symphony puts its annual spotlight on composing’s next generation

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by Stephanie Manning

The Cleveland Chamber Symphony has changed plenty since its founding more than 40 years ago. But some things are still the same.

In addition to the Symphony’s performing work, founder Edwin London “firmly believed that it could be an educational tool as well,” music director Steven Smith said. So in 1983, the Young & Emerging Composers Concert was born — an annual opportunity for the ensemble to play an entire program of new works by local student composers.

This tradition is set to continue on Saturday, March 8 during the Symphony’s “NEOSonicSpring” program, presented at 4:00 pm in Baldwin Wallace Conservatory’s Gamble Auditorium. [Read more…]

Cleveland Chamber Symphony: a tribute to three composing greats (Sept. 15)

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by Stephanie Manning

Last Sunday’s Cleveland Chamber Symphony concert began with an encore and ended with a concerto, flipping the usual program order on its head. The result was quite refreshing, setting the tone for their September 15 program: “NEOSonicFall — Celebrating NEOhio Composers.”

The performance in Baldwin Wallace’s Gamble Auditorium lasted just over an hour, a pleasant surprise when many orchestral programs often double that. And it would have been even shorter had the group not repeated Donald Erb’s Spatial Fanfare. Clocking in at less than two minutes, the opening work was over in a flash — so conductor Steven Smith explained that the group would repeat it to help the audience soak it in.

[Read more…]

Announcements

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Tuesday Musical invites college-age students pursuing careers as music performers and/or educators to apply online for its 2020 Scholarship Competition to be held in Akron on March 21. The deadline is February 1. Click here for information.

Cleveland’s Broadway School of Music and the Arts is hiring part-time teachers of violin, piano, woodwinds & drums for classes on weekdays between 2:00 and 8:00 pm and possibly on Saturdays. Click here to download application details.

Cleveland Chamber Symphony will be accepting scores from Northeast Ohio composers until midnight on January 17 to be considered for its April 7 NeoSonicFest concert at Baldwin Wallace. Click here for criteria and details.

NEOSonicFest: Cleveland Chamber Symphony & Verb Ballets at Maltz PAC (April 7)

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by Rory O’Donoghue

The Cleveland Chamber Symphony fused ballet and contemporary music on April 7 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center. Music director and conductor Steven Smith led the Grammy-winning ensemble through an energetic program with guest dancers from two local companies.

[Read more…]

NEOSonicFest: Uno Lady, McDaniel + Kirkwood, & Stephan Haluska at Mahall’s (Mar. 29)

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by Rory O’Donoghue

“This next one will have all the homosexuals in the room grabbing a vodka cranberry,” composer Buck McDaniel said winkingly to a packed crowd at Mahall’s last Friday night, March 29. “Including me,” he added. It was perfect commentary for the energetic kickoff event of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony’s 6th NEOSonicFest, an evening that celebrated both cocktails and contemporary music.

[Read more…]

NEOSonicFest kicks off on Friday at Mahall’s

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by Mike Telin

Cleveland Chamber Symphony launches its sixth NEOSonicFest on Friday, March 29 at 9:00 pm at Mahall’s in Lakewood with a concert in partnership with Fresh Perspectives. Uno Lady (Christa Ebert), a one-woman choir, will create electronic loops, harpist Stephan Haluska will present his own electro-acoustical compositions, and Buck McDaniel and Jacob Kirkwood will present a concert version of their live electro-acoustic score written for Cleveland Public Theatre’s Fire on the Water, a meditation on the 50th anniversary of the burning of the Cuyahoga River. The evening will also feature “signature cocktails” available for purchase. Tickets go for $7.

In a recent conference call, Fresh Perspective’s Devin Hinzo said that when they were looking for a venue to present McDaniel’s and Kirkwood’s piece, they immediately thought of Mahall’s. “They support local and emerging musicians as well as music that doesn’t fit any particular genre, so it seemed like a natural fit.”

[Read more…]

NEOSonicFest: a look back at the beginning, and a peek at what’s on tap in 2019

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by Jarrett Hoffman

When a festival runs for long enough, it becomes interesting to look back and remember that it wasn’t always a staple of the local culture. At one time, it was entirely new.

“Last weekend,” Daniel Hathaway wrote in April of 2014, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony “burst suddenly into bloom like a crocus after a long winter with the first of two concerts anchoring its promising new enterprise, NEOSonicFest…”

Back then, music director Steven Smith had been thinking for years about how to keep the name and activities of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony alive, as Mike Telin reported in our very first preview of NEOSonicFest. The retirement of the orchestra’s founder, Edwin London, and the end of its residency at Cleveland State University had slowed the group’s momentum.

[Read more…]

Maltz Center at Case announces new Silver Hall Concert Series

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by Hannah Schoepe

The Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center at the Temple Tifereth-Israel on the campus of Case Western Reserve University will present a new Silver Hall Concert Series. The performances begin this weekend with the annual Showcase Concert presented by the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society on September 15, and continue with the Cleveland Chamber Choir on September 23. The series will comprise nineteen free concerts featuring professional and semi-professional ensembles from greater Cleveland in the 1,200-seat Silver Hall Auditorium (a full concert calendar is below).

The idea of shimmering silver is certainly a fitting concept to describe the Series, presented in partnership with CWRU. Renovated in 2015, Silver Hall Auditorium now includes state-of-the art recording and live-streaming capability. This Series marks the Maltz Center’s new venture into presenting.

Randall Barnes, executive director of the Maltz Center, said the Series tackles several key components that help to define the niche of the Center. “First, the celebration of the musical artistry of our students through the CWRU Music Department ensembles; second, the professional and semi-professional talent of the greater Cleveland area ensembles showcased here; and finally, the intersection of technology and heritage by delivering one-of-a-kind performances both in-person and live-streamed from Silver Hall, the historical showpiece of the Maltz Performing Arts Center.”

[Read more…]

NEOSonicFest: Cleveland Chamber Symphony Young and Emerging Composers (April 11)

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by Daniel Hathaway

CCSCodyRayThe final event in the Cleveland Chamber Symphony’s 2018 NEOSonicFest gave eight young composers the opportunity to hear their creations played by a professional orchestra led by Steven Smith — himself a composer. The pieces were performed in Gamble Auditorium at Baldwin Wallace University on Wednesday, April 11.

[Read more…]

NEOSonicFest 2018 to present five concerts April 5 through 11

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by Mike Telin

CCS-Y&EC-040614Since 2014, the Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony has sponsored NEOSonicFest, a festival of new music performed by musicians from Northeast Ohio and beyond. The 2018 festival will run from April 5 through 11 (see below for concert dates and times).

Clarinetist Carol Robinson and trumpeter Nate Wooley will kick things off by performing selections from Éliane Radigue’s Occam Ocean on April 5 at MOCA. The composer describes her work as “an ongoing acoustic work with influences ranging from electromagnetic waves, to William of Ockham’s philosophies, to science fiction mythologies.”

The always creative No Exit will return to the Festival on April 6 at Heights Arts. The ensemble was founded by composer Timothy Beyer as an outlet for the commissioning and performance of contemporary avant-garde concert music. No Exit is committed to promoting the works of living composers, particularly the music of young and emerging artists who haven’t yet received either the opportunities or exposure of their better-known counterparts. (Works by Leo Ornstein, Ty Emerson, Per Nørgård, James Praznik, Andrew Rindfleisch & Tristan Murail).

[Read more…]

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