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Berta Rojas to make long-awaited Cleveland debut for Guitar Society

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by Mike Telin

Although Paraguayan guitarist Berta Rojas was set to make her Cleveland debut on March 14, 2020, the coronavirus had other plans.

In August of that year, Rojas gave a free, pre-recorded online concert for the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: a program entirely devoted to the music of fellow Paraguayan Agustín Barrios Mangoré.

Now, after a two-year wait, Berta Rojas will make her in-person Cleveland debut on Saturday, April 2 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. The program celebrates Argentine guitarist-composer Maria Luisa Anido and French guitarist-composer Ida Presti, both of whom were pioneering virtuosos during a time when concert stages were dominated by men. Tickets are available online. [Read more…]

Duo Noire to make Cleveland Classical Guitar Society Debut

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by Mike Telin

Although they wouldn’t meet for some time, Thomas Flippin and Christopher Mallett long shared a musical trajectory.

They both grew up in Southern California and were steeped in their local punk rock scenes, playing in bands during high school. They both found their way to the classical guitar in their late teens. They both did their undergraduate studies in the Midwest — Flippin at the University of Chicago and Mallett at Oberlin Conservatory — and they both went on to study at Yale University, becoming the first two African American guitarists to be admitted into the program. Yale was also where they formed Duo Noire, taking the name of the French term for both “black” and “quarter note.”

On Saturday, March 5 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church, the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society will present Duo Noire in a program that explores the many ways music expresses the essence of place. Tickets are available online. [Read more…]

Guitar Society with Andrea Caballero: Spanish music & mental strategies

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Spanish-born Andrea González Caballero, who in 2016 became the youngest guitarist to receive first prize in the Alhambra International Guitar Competition in Valencia, has chosen an all-Spanish program for her Cleveland debut this weekend.

Presented by the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, the recital takes place on Saturday, November 20 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, and features music by Tárrega, Sainz de la Maza, de Falla, Turina, and Albéniz. Tickets and safety policies are available here.

Hailing from Eibar in the Basque Country in northern Spain, Caballero moved to Düsseldorf, Germany in her late teens to study guitar at the Robert Schumann Musikhochschule, then to Baltimore to enroll at the Peabody Institute. These days, she calls Miami home.

“I like it here very much,” she said during a recent telephone call. “The first city that I lived in when I moved to the U.S. was Baltimore, which was a little bit contrasting to what I was used to. Florida, and especially Miami, I find to be a little bit closer to my culture — Hispanic culture.” And the weather certainly isn’t a minus, she added.

[Read more…]

Celil Refik Kaya brings a personal touch to Cleveland Classical Guitar Society performance (Oct. 23)

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by Stephanie Manning

Like many of us, guitarist Celil Refik Kaya had a lot of time on his hands over the past eighteen months, and he used the opportunity to lean into another of his musical passions — composing. In his second-ever visit to the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, Kaya brought the product of this extra time with him — the newly-composed Sketches, based on four works of visual art created by his father.

The Guitar Society’s executive director, Erik Mann, introduced Kaya by proclaiming that the audience would leave feeling addicted to his music, and his prediction wasn’t wrong. The process to get there unfolded over the course of the evening on Saturday, October 23 at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Celil Refik Kaya returns with Sketches

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by Jarrett Hoffman

When Turkish-American guitarist Celil Refik Kaya returns to the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society for a recital at Plymouth Church on Saturday, October 23 at 7:30 pm, there will be one important overlap with his program from four years ago: it will include a piece by Celil Refik Kaya.

“Celil, every concert you do for us, you have to play one of your own compositions,” Guitar Society executive director Erik Mann once said to him. Mann laughed as he recalled that line last month in an interview. It was a friendly request, not a stern one, but there was a seriousness behind it born out of respect for Kaya’s music.

Speaking from New Jersey, where he teaches at New Jersey City University, Kaya described the gestation of the work he’ll bring to Cleveland this weekend. “I was planning to compose this piece for a long time — since I was a teenager, actually. My father had a bunch of these surreal, fantastic sketches, and I wanted to write pieces based on them, but I never had a chance to do it.”

Finally, in the pandemic, he found time to return to his old drafts, and Sketches became a reality.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: the Showcase Concert and into the fall

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by Jarrett Hoffman

As per tradition, the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society will kick off its 2021-22 series with the free Showcase Concert highlighting musicians from around the region. This year’s event, which you can attend in person at the Maltz Performing Arts Center on Saturday, September 18 at 7:30 pm, or via livestream, might aptly be described as a Cincinnati sandwich on Cleveland bread.

There will be three sets, with Cleveland-based musicians on either end. Guitar Society educator Andy Poxon will open the concert with Mauro Giuliani’s Grande Ouverture before moving to his own arrangement of Handel’s D-Major Violin Sonata, where he’ll be joined by violinist Jeanelle Brierley.

Occupying the middle portion of the program is guitarist and composer Jeremy Collins, representing his hometown and homebase of Cincinnati, though he also studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music as an undergraduate (Cleveland-bred in addition to the Cleveland bread). He’ll perform two of his own pieces, The Starry Night and Reverie, followed by José Luis Merlin’s Suite del Recuerdo.

At the finish, bringing an impressive variety of flavors to the table is the guitar-and-flute Gruca White Ensemble. They’ll open with three miniatures by Stephen Goss (part of his From Honey to Ashes) influenced by music from around the world. They’ll continue with Masamitsu Takahashi’s Homage to the Harvest Moon, in which they’ll imitate the Japanese traditional instruments shinobue and koto. And they’ll finish with two movements from Marshall Griffith’s Jazz Impressions of Cleveland.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Creative Fusion from start to finish

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by Jarrett Hoffman

One grant, given to two organizations, presenting three artists-in-residence, joined by over one hundred guest artists, in nine videos designed to increase awareness around an array of social and cultural issues.

The sum of those numbers is a virtual series presented by the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society and El Comité Mexicano de Cleveland (Mexican Committee of Cleveland) through funding from the Cleveland Foundation’s Creative Fusion program. The series is ongoing: six videos have been released since early June — watch them here — with three still to come beginning on Friday, July 30.

First, some background about Creative Fusion in general, and in particular the 2020 edition, delayed twelve months due to the pandemic. The program invites artists from around the world to participate in residencies in Cleveland, and since 2016, each year has been designed around a different theme.

The 2020 edition, titled Contar, was to be centered in Clark-Fulton, which contains the La Villa Hispaña neighborhood, known as an emerging cultural, social, and economic hub for the Hispanic community. The dual meanings of contar — Spanish for both “to count” and “to tell” — were tied into the 2020 Census.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: Edel Muñoz, remote from Puerto Rico

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cuban-American guitarist Edel Muñoz made his third rendezvous with the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society on Saturday, April 17. The first was a recital at Plymouth Church in November of 2012, the second a two-part engagement in July of 2014 when he performed for a CCGS benefit and gave a master class. Most recently, his appearance was virtual. At home in Puerto Rico, he recorded a 45-minute recital and connected online with guitar students from the Society’s educational programs.

As Muñoz told the students in a Q&A, he began playing popular guitar in Cuba at the age of 7, then moved on to classical when he turned 9. Early on, he impressed the likes of Leo Brouwer, who described the 13-year-old guitarist as “perfect” and “professional,” qualities that came through clearly in his recent performance. [Read more…]

Emanuele Buono makes impressive CCGS debut

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by Mike Telin

Over the years, the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society has presented a seemingly endless roster of outstanding players on their International Series. That tradition continued on Saturday, March 20 when Emanuele Buono made his series debut with an impressive pre-recorded concert that left you wondering if the Italian guitarist was born with the instrument in his hands.

Seated in front of a white wall adorned with posters and a small collection of guitars, the soft-spoken Buono briefly introduced the first work — J.S. Bach’s Flute Partita in a. From the first notes of the “Allemande,” the guitarist produced a rich, unfettered tone that amplified his well-shaped phrases. [Read more…]

Italian guitarist Emanuele Buono debuts with Cleveland Classical Guitar Society

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by Mike Telin

Although guitarist Emanuele Buono didn’t come from a musical family, his father had a passion for the instrument. “He put the guitar in my hands when I was five years old,” Buono said in an email. “And from that moment, I have never stopped playing.”

On Saturday, March 20 at 7:30 pm, Buono will make his Cleveland Classical Guitar Society International Series debut with an online program that will feature music by J.S. Bach, Franz Schubert, Hans Haug, and Gerard Drozd. The pre-recorded concert is free. Click here to receive links to the performance as well as to a post-concert Zoom reception with the artist, plus a copy of the full concert program.

Born in Turin, Italy in 1987, Buono began his musical studies at a young age. He went on to attend the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan and later the Accademia Chigiana of Siena. He first broke onto the international concert scene in 2008 when he was awarded the Golden Guitar as the best young concert-player of the year at the XIII International Guitar Competition and Festival of Alessandria (Italy). In 2009, he won the Gold Medal at the International Christopher Parkening Competition (USA). [Read more…]

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