by Mike Telin
“I believe I am approaching a new way of expression,” composer Arnold Schoenberg wrote in his diary on March 12, 1912. The work Schoenberg is referring to is none other than his pioneering Pierrot Lunaire.
On Wednesday March 2 at 8:00 pm in CIM’s Mixon Hall, and Monday March 7 at 7:30 in Lorain County Community College’s Cirigliano Studio Theatre, the Cleveland-based new music ensemble Ars Futura will present Schoenberg’s melodrama. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin & Daniel Hathaway
Directed by David Bamberger, CIM Opera Theater will present four performances of Hector Berlioz’s comic opera Béatrice et Bénédict in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music beginning on Wednesday, February 24 at 7:30 pm and continuing through Saturday, February 27. An adaptation of William Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing, Berlioz conceived the piece as early as 1833, but completed it only in 1862 at the behest of a casino owner in Baden-Baden, Germany, where it was first performed at the Theater der Stadt in August of that year.
“It’s not performed that often, and most people only know it from the overture, which is such a great piece in itself,” conductor Harry Davidson said in a telephone conversation. “For the opera, Berlioz took out all the tragic elements that appear in the play — Héro being accused of adultery and her father disowning her — none of that is there. But it’s very stageworthy and the music is really quite delightful and charming.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
From the time she was eight years old, Shulamit Ran aspired to be one thing: a composer. In an interview with the Chicago Reader the Israeli-born Pulitzer Prize-Winner recalled that she began to write melodies at the encouragement of her piano teacher.
“My teacher sent some of those melodies to a local radio station,” she says, “and they ended up being performed on the radio by a children’s choir. It is a vivid recollection — I was eight at the time and away at summer camp; there we all were, the kids and myself, all sitting around a large radio listening to my music coming out of it. That was a revelation for me, because it was the first time that I had the sense my music could live outside of me. What I had made up now had its own, separate existence. It gave me such pleasure and it was a very special feeling, and I knew that I wanted to keep doing this. Although all kinds of other things have always interested me, I’ve never wanted to do anything else but compose ever since.”
Next week, the Cleveland Institute of Music will play host to the celebrated composer during a three-day residency. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Northeast Ohio audiences are in for a treat next week when the Cleveland Institute of Music plays host to celebrated composer Shulamit Ran for a three-day residency. On Tuesday, January 26 at 4:30 pm, the Pulitzer Prize-Winner will discuss her music in Studio 113. The event is free and open to the public. The following evening at 8:00 pm in Kulas Hall, guest conductor Steven Smith will lead the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra in a concert that will include Ran’s Legends and Violin Concerto featuring Laurie Smukler as soloist. The program will also include Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question.
“Shulamit is fantastic in every way,” Keith Fitch, who heads the Composition Department and holds the Vincent K. and Edith H. Smith Chair in Composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music, said during a recent telephone conversation. “She’s had such a long and distinguished career as a composer, teacher, and advocate for new music. She’s so good with students, and she’s a great mentor and role model.” Ran recently retired from academia, having taught at the University of Chicago since 1973.
“I’ve always admired Shulamit’s music so much. Not only is it beautifully crafted, it’s also emotionally powerful, and so engaging. There’s this fearless quality to her music that I really love.” [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Now that winter has finally arrived and the excitement of the holidays has subsided, it’s tempting to burrow in and hibernate for a few weeks. But there’s plenty to do during January. Let’s have a look at some of what the month has to offer, beginning with orchestra concerts.
Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra are back at work early in the month with a round of all-Beethoven concerts from January 7-9 featuring pianist Yefim Bronfman (left) in the third piano concerto, and Bronfman and the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus in the Choral Fantasy. Soprano Barbara Hannigan will be featured in the U.S. premiere of Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you on January 14 and 15, sharing a program with Dmitri Shostakovich’s fourth symphony. On Saturday the 16th, Robert Porco will lead the annual Martin Luther King Jr Celebration, followed by a Severance Hall Open House on Monday the 17th from 12 Noon to 5 pm. Community ensemble performances will be bracketed by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus (12:30) and Youth Orchestra (4:15). The Cleveland Philharmonic will host its own MLK Observance at Tri-C Metro Auditorium on Sunday, January 17. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
Last Friday evening, December 4, the Cavani String Quartet (Annie Fullard and Mari Sato, violins, Kirsten Docter, viola, and Merry Peckham, cello) — who serve as Artists-in-Residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music — presented a stellar concert of Czech music in Kulas Hall as the final event of the CIM Violins of Hope concert series. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Composer Erwin Schulhoff, who perished in the Holocaust, wrote in his 1919 avant-garde music manifesto: The idea of revolution in art has evolved for decades…This is particularly true in music, because this art form is the liveliest, and as a result reflects the revolution most strongly and deeply — the complete escape from imperialistic tonality and rhythm, the climb to an ecstatic change for the better.
“I love that quote,” violinist Annie Fullard said during a telephone conversation. “It’s so upsetting that Schulhoff’s life was cut short.” On Friday, December 4 at 8:00 pm in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Cavani Quartet (Annie Fullard and Mari Sato, violins, Kirsten Docter, viola, and Merry Peckham, cello) will perform two pieces by Schulhoff — Divertimento for String Quartet, Op. 14 and String Sextet — as part of a CIM Violins of Hope Faculty Recital. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
With December 8 marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, many celebrations are being held in his honor. On Sunday, November 22 at 4:00 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Cleveland Institute of Music faculty, alumni, and students will observe the occasion with a Jean Sibelius 150th Anniversary Concert.
Performers will include soprano Emily Stauch, violinists Mari Sato, Kimia Ghaderi, James Thompson, and Virginia Wolf Lewis, violist Jessica Pasternak, cellist Carlyn Kessler, and pianists Linda Jones and Sean Schulze.
“I grew up in a family with a lot of classical music playing in the house, including Sibelius, who was one of my parents’ favorite composers,” said Emily Stauch, who spearheaded the concert. “My mother would even clean the house while listening to Sibelius.” [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
What may be the largest group of Cleveland cultural institutions ever to circle their wagons around a single project will come into play this fall when Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, The Cleveland Orchestra, Facing History and Ourselves, Ideastream, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage join together to present Violins of Hope Cleveland.
Four months of concerts, exhibitions, screenings, lectures, theatrical productions, and educational offerings will center around the extraordinary collection of violins amassed by Tel Aviv violinmaker Amnon Weinstein, instruments that managed to survive the Holocaust.
Weinstein, who emigrated from Eastern Europe to open a violin shop in Palestine in 1938, learned after World War II that some four hundred of his family members had perished under the Nazis. Later, he heard a heartfelt account from a survivor who had brought an instrument in for restoration of what the violin and its music had meant to Jews during those horrific days. In 1996 — and now recognized as one of the finest violinmakers in the world — Weinstein decided to put out a call for Holocaust-era violins. To date, he has restored nearly fifty such instruments to playing condition, a collection he dubbed “Violins of Hope.” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Since its founding in 1973, the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition — the largest chamber music competition in the world — has helped launch the careers of many notable chamber music ensembles. Alumni and past winners with ties to Northeast Ohio include the Aeolus Quartet, Cavani Quartet, eighth blackbird, Imani Winds, Jasper Quartet, Jupiter Quartet, Miami String Quartet, Miro Quartet, Pacifica Quartet, and Prima Trio. Most recently, the Omer Quartet, representing the Cleveland Institute of Music, won the senior division string and grand prizes in 2013.
The 42nd annual Fischoff competition took place from May 8 through 10 at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center on the campus of Notre Dame University in South Bend Indiana. When all was said and done, CIM’s Autana Trio, Yuri Noh, violin, Ruben Rengel, viola, and Anna Bowman, cello, was awarded the Bronze Medal and a $2,000 cash prize in the Senior String Division. [Read more…]