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Cleveland Classical Guitar Society Showcase at Maltz PAC (September 15)

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by Nicholas Stevens

Concerts that feature multiple players on a single instrument come with a risk: the consistency of tone across the evening can come across as a lack of variety. Some instruments, such as the piano, evade this thanks to centuries’ worth of diverse repertoire. Classical guitarists have additional advantages: their community boasts a strong tradition of writing new transcriptions and original works, and each great player has a unique sound. Both of those were in full evidence at last weekend’s Showcase Concert for the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society.

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Cleveland Classical Guitar Society to present Showcase Concert Sept. 15

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by Mike Telin

What are musicians to do when the piece of music they are looking to present simply doesn’t exist in the repertoire? In the case of guitarists Stephen Aron and Jeremy Collins, they decided to fill that void by writing their own.

On Saturday, September 15 at 7:30 pm in the Maltz Performing Arts Center, Aron and Collins will be joined by fellow guitarist Colin Davin during the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s annual Showcase Concert. The program will include Mauro Giuliani’s Rossiniana No. 1 along with selections from Aron’s Menagerie, Sixteen Concert Studies for Guitar (2018) and the premiere of Collins’ Impressions for Viola and Guitar. The free event is part of the inaugural Silver Hall Concert Series.

Aron, who has been teaching at the Oberlin Conservatory since 1992 (he also taught at the University of Akron for thirty-four years), has often felt “boxed in” by the limited number of concert studies available to him as a teacher. “Then it finally hit me — I should just write my own,” he said during a telephone conversation.

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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.”

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Jason Vieaux & Sasha Cooke on CCMS series at Plymouth Church (May 8)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Vieaux CookeTwo of Cleveland’s distinguished concert organizations — the Cleveland Chamber Music Society and the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society — put their resources and audiences together for a winning end-of-season concert by guitarist Jason Vieaux and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke on Tuesday, May 8 at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. Inspired by folk music, jazz, and Broadway, the repertoire may have seemed light compared to what string quartets bring to the CCMS series, but Vieaux and Cooke brought committed professionalism to each item on the menu. [Read more…]

Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke & guitarist Jason Vieaux to reunite for duo concert in Shaker Heights

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by Jarrett Hoffman

SASHA_COOKE_pc_Dario_Acosta_a_300dpi (1)After first performing together at Music@Menlo in 2010, then following that up with an appearance at the Kennedy Center, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and guitarist Jason Vieaux have long had their eyes on a reunion concert.

The pair of Grammy winners will get that chance this May. They’ll head to the University of California, Davis for a performance on Friday, then cross the country to Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights for a joint recital on Tuesday, May 8 at 7:30 pm.

The program of Spanish and American music is co-presented by Cleveland’s Classical Guitar and Chamber Music Societies (CCGS and CCMS). ClevelandClassical.com’s own Daniel Hathaway will give a pre-concert lecture at 6:30 pm.

“We’ve been working on this for years, so it’s long in coming,” Sasha Cooke said during a phone call. “I’m glad it finally worked out. It’s really beautiful music, and Jason’s a phenomenal guitarist.”

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Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Paul Galbraith at Plymouth (March 17)

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by Nicholas Stevens

Galbraith@PlymouthLet’s clarify this right away: Paul Galbraith, the Scottish guitarist, plays a custom-built, 8-stringed instrument that sets him apart in the classical guitar world. Called the “Brahms guitar” after the first piece Galbraith transcribed for it — that composer’s Variations on an Original Theme for piano — it allows the player to tackle a wide range of transcribed repertoire thanks to its two extra strings: a bass A, and a high A. He plays the instrument upright, cello-style, its end pin inserted into a resonating box. [Read more…]

Galbraith returns — with extra strings — to Cleveland Classical Guitar Society

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by Daniel Hathaway

Galbraith@PlymouthScottish guitarist Paul Galbraith will return to the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society series at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights on Saturday, March 17 at 7:30 pm with a program of his own transcriptions of music by J.S. Bach (French Suite No. 2), Alexander Scriabin (Four Preludes), Isaac Albéniz (Sevilla, Mallorca, and Torre Bermeja), and Joseph Haydn (Keyboard Sonatas in c# and E). He’ll perform on his unique 8-string “Brahms” guitar made by David Rubio that inevitably causes audiences to do a second or third take when they first see it.

Galbraith explained the origins of the instrument in an interview with this publication in 2012.

I was aware of some of the limitations that the 6-string guitar imposes early on, in fact as early as when I was twelve, when learning my first Bach lute suite. When facing that material on guitar, you’re confronted with having to make decisions and compromises: you don’t have the necessary range to play what Bach writes, so you have to rearrange things to fit. And it struck me even then: why don’t we have a wider-ranging instrument to play this great repertoire? Soon after, the same questions arose when playing the lute music of Dowland. Meanwhile, there were one or two prominent players who used instruments with a wider range. [Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Les Frères Méduses at Plymouth (Feb. 24)

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by Robert Rollin

LesFreres022418Last Saturday night February 24, Les Frères Méduses (The Jellyfish Brothers) completed their Cleveland residency with a concert at Shaker Heights’ Plymouth Church focusing on 21st Century music for two guitars. The Duo, Frenchman Benoit Albert and Ohio native Randall Avers, featured their own improvisations, which were tossed off with flair and impeccable ensemble. [Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society
to present Les Frères Méduses
(“The Jellyfish Brothers”)

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Les Freres MedusesThere is a lot that’s unique about the guitar duo of Randall Avers and Benoît Albert, including their background and repertoire — and of course, their name: Les Frères Méduses. When I asked Avers — an Ohio native and Oberlin alum with connections to the University of Akron — to explain The Jellyfish Brothers, he called over to his duo partner for help telling the story. “Ben!”

Albert picked up another phone at Avers’ parents’ house in Massillon, where the two guitarists were staying before heading out for performances in Kentucky and Ohio. That tour includes a concert this Saturday, February 24 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights on the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s International Series. There they’ll bring together Balkan folk music, classical music, two works of their own, and a free improvisation.

I asked again. Why The Jellyfish Brothers? “Oh,” Albert said, laughing. “It’s a long story.”

It begins in 2008 at the Akron Zoo — at a jellyfish exhibit.

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Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Sharon Isbin with Colin Davin (Nov. 4)

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by Timothy Robson

Isbin-DavinFor reasons unknown, Sharon Isbin, one of the leading classical guitar virtuosos of our time, had never performed in Cleveland until Saturday evening, November 4, when she appeared in a recital for the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society at Plymouth Church of Shaker Heights. During the second half of the evening, she was joined by Cleveland native Colin Davin, a former Isbin student and current faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Baldwin Wallace University. [Read more…]

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