by Daniel Hathaway
A gripping bassoon concerto from 1975, the world premiere of a cantata on a chilling subject, and a Buddist-inspired essay in instrumental colors written in 1997 provided Timothy Weiss and his Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble with plenty of opportunities to shine on Saturday afternoon, March 7, when they presented their fourth concert of the season in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Read more…]
by Jane Berkner
The Cleveland Museum of Art Performing Arts Series took the Gartner Auditorium audience on an exotic trip on Wednesday, February 11. Through the artistic world of the Ragamala Dance Company choreographers Aparna and Ranee Ramaswamy collaborated with jazz saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa to create a fusion of Carnatic Indian and American Jazz forms. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
It may seem odd to those in other professions, but what’s a more natural way to celebrate a major milestone in the life of a musician than inviting him to perform at his own party? On Sunday, January 25, organist Karel Paukert returned to the Cleveland Museum of Art, where he served as curator of musical arts from 1974 to 2004, to mark his 80th birthday with a masterful performance of Olivier Messiaen’s La Nativité du Seigneur (1935). [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
On Sunday, January 25, the Cleveland Museum of Art will present organist Karel Paukert, former and long-time curator of musical arts at the museum, in a special recital in Gartner Auditorium. To mark his 80th birthday Paukert will revisit a work that he has played “at least annually” for decades, Olivier Messiaen’s La Nativité du Seigneur (“The Birth of Christ”).
In December of 2008, shortly after the launch of ClevelandClassical.com, we interviewed Karel Paukert about his forthcoming January performance of the Messiaen work at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights. That performance observed the centenary of the famous French composer’s birth. Paukert’s reflections on La Nativité and on his own career, reprinted below, remain highly relevant six years later.
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Born in Prague, Karel Paukert came to the US by way of Reykjavík and Belgium. He taught and played organ in St. Louis and Evanston, IL before becoming a US citizen in 1972 and curator of musical arts at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1974. During his thirty years in that post he played more than 800 organ recitals, administered two highly respected concert series, founded the Aki Festival of new music and arranged for the personal appearance of Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod in Cleveland in 1978. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
One person’s music is another’s noise. On Friday, January 16 in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Italian musicologist, composer and musician Luciano Chessa led a fascinating and brilliantly programmed concert by the “Orchestra of Future Noise Intoners” or “Intonarumori,” which challenged listeners to hear the musical possibilities that can be found in noise. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin & Daniel Hathaway
It’s common for people who don’t like contemporary music to describe it as “noise,” but in 1913, the Italian painter and forward-thinker Luigi Russolo proclaimed intentionally-created noise to be the concert music of the future. In his Futurist Manifesto, L’arte dei rumori (The Art of Noises), Russolo summarizes the evolution of Western music and arrives at a radical conclusion:
Ancient life was all silence. In the 19th Century, with the invention of machines, Noise was born. Today, Noise is triumphant and reigns sovereign over the sensibility of men…As it grows ever more complicated today, musical art seeks out combinations more dissonant, stranger, and harsher for the ear. Thus, it comes ever closer to the noise-sound…We must break out of the limited circle of sounds [of the orchestra] and conquer the infinite variety of noise-sounds. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Jones
In the dark days of December, the seasonal need for light and hope seems to unite the faithful, the lapsed, the secular and even the skeptical in a desire for choral music. Tallis Scholars, the distinguished English choir, recently brought a program of great Renaissance vocal works to the Cleveland Museum of Art, singing with enough soul and skill to light us at least through the impending solstice. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
As part of its 2014/15 performing arts series, the Cleveland Museum of Art is presenting five concerts by the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, directed by Timothy Weiss. The third, featuring works by Pierre Boulez, Harrison Birtwistle and Richard Wernick, took place on Saturday, December 13, in Gartner Auditorium. The audience enjoyed top-notch performances, showing not only technical prowess but also a strong sense of the musicality of each of these difficult works. [Read more…]
This week the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts series will present three musically diverse concerts in Gartner Auditorium.
On Thursday, December 11 at 7:30 pm, The Tallis Scholars make their CMA debut with a program of Renaissance choral music by William Byrd, Josquin des Prez, and Edmund Turges. Director Peter Phillips founded The Tallis Scholars in 1973. Through recordings and concert performances, the ensemble has established itself as the leading exponent of Renaissance sacred music throughout the world. Phillips has worked with the group to create, through good tuning and blend, the purity and clarity of sound that he feels best serves the Renaissance repertoire, allowing every detail of the musical lines to be heard. It is this resulting beauty of sound for which The Tallis Scholars has become so widely renowned.
by Jarrett Hoffman
Bartók and Miley Cyrus sat side by side at Ohio City’s Transformer Station last Wednesday, November 19 — and the marriage was predictably odd. Presented by the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series, the Calder Quartet put on a stunning, compact show at the equally compact art gallery, and watching over from the wall behind them was the provocative pop star, depicted in prints as part of artist Julia Wachtel’s work Girl. [Read more…]