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Preview: CMA Masters of the Violin — a chat with Gil Shaham

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by Daniel Hathaway

SHAHAM-Gil2Northeastern Ohio Cleveland Orchestra fans who (rather enviously) tuned in to a recent live radio broadcast from Miami experienced the artistry of violinist Gil Shaham in the Korngold concerto in a performance led by Franz Welser-Möst. Shaham is spending the midwinter months playing that work in alternation with a solo program of J.S. Bach’s solo violin music. The Cleveland Museum of Art will bring Gil Shaham to its Masters of the Violin series-within-a-series on Thursday evening, February 6 to play three of Bach’s works. We reached Shaham by telephone in Houston last week where he was preparing to play the Korngold with John Adams and the Houston Symphony.

Daniel Hathaway: We enjoyed hearing the Korngold over the radio from Miami, and considering the weather here, we really wished we’d been there in person.

Gil Shaham: I felt very lucky to be there with Franz and The Cleveland Orchestra. It’s been a few years since I’ve played the Korngold. It’s beautifully written and the composer gets really wonderful sounds from the violin and the orchestra. [Read more…]

Preview: CMA at Transformer Station — Chicago’s Third Coast Percussion to play January 19

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by Daniel Hautzinger

Third-Coast-PercussionLooking for an unusual evening? How about “beautiful marimba chorales, exciting marimba and drum music, a piece for chopsticks bouncing on whiskey bottles and grill grates” and “one of the early masterpieces” for percussion in an old electrical station? This is how David Skidmore described Third Coast Percussion’s CMA concert at Transformer Station on January 19.

Skidmore, along with Robert Dillon, Peter Martin, and Sean Connors makes up Third Coast. Many groups would be daunted by playing in an alternative space such as Transformer Station, but not Third Coast, who have performed at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium and in Frank Lloyd Wright-designed houses across the country, among other unique venues.

“We really like trying new things, playing new places, and finding cool connections that our music has with other disciplines,” Skidmore said in a phone conversation. Hence the quartet’s collaboration with engineers at the University of Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, where Third Coast is Ensemble-in-Residence. “There’s a common misconception that scientists are analytical and musicians or artists are creative. Both of those things are true. But it’s equally true that musicians are very analytical. [Read more…]

Review: Camille Norment at CMA’s Transformer Station (December 15)

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by Mike Telin

NORMENT-CamilleIn last week’s ClevelandClassical concert preview, multi-media artist Camille Norment said that her artistic goal is to push limits and to create something new. On Sunday, December 15 during her concert on the CMA at Transformer Station series, she and her trio colleagues did exactly that during their fifty minute set of four hauntingly beautiful sound installations that live in the blurred area between composition and improvisation.

Performing on the exotic glass armonic and singing bowls, Camille Norment’s trio includes Håvard Skaset, electric guitar, and Vegar Vårdal, hardanger (Norwegian fiddle). Individually they are fine musicians — Vegar Vårdal possesses a great bow arm. But it is in the collective that the group shines brightest. Founded in 2010 in Norway to “explore the instruments’ paradoxical relationships to notions of beauty, noise, tension and harmony as a musical experience.” The trio gave their debut performance at the Ultima New Music Festival in Oslo on September 11, 2011. [Read more…]

Preview: CMA Transformer Station Concerts — an interview with Norwegian multimedia artist Camille Norment

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by Mike Telin

NORMENT-CamilleHow does multimedia artist Camille Norment define her music? “It ranges from being inspired by improvisation, Norwegian Black Metal, folk music and certainly classical references. And absolutely contemporary electronic music as well, so in that sense it’s situated very much within the realm of indefinable contemporary experimental music,” the soft spoken Norment said by telephone from her studio in Norway.

On Sunday, December 15 beginning at 7:30 pm, CMA Concerts at Transformer Station presents Camille Norment, glass armonica, who will be joined by her Trio colleagues Håvard Skaset, electric guitar and Vegar Vårdal, hardingfele (Norwegian fiddle).

Originally from the Washington D.C. area of Maryland, Norment says her expansive list of artistic interests began to be formed at the University of Michigan where she earned her bachelor”s in comparative literature and art history. Her website lists Objects/Installations, Photo/Video, Sonic/Performance and Text as areas of interest. [Read more…]

Preview: “Mother and Child” at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Saturday, December 14

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by Mike Telin

CMA-Virgin-and-ChildInspired by imagery of the Virgin and Child in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s medieval collection, Mother and Child, a progressive choral event, invites audiences to experience a stunning intersection of the aural and the visual in three different museum spaces on Saturday, December 14. Performers will include Quire Cleveland, led by Ross Duffin, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth and Children’s Choruses, directed by Lisa Wong, and the sopranos and altos of Trinity Cathedral Choir with brass and organ conducted by Todd Wilson.

At 2:00 pm in the Reid Gallery, Quire Cleveland will begin with a work from the 15th century, There is no rose, followed by Josquin des Prez’s Ave Maria, which Duffin describes as one of the composer’s iconic works. The performance continues with an extended piece in carol form from the Court of Henry VIII, Quid petis, o fili? byRichard Pygott. “It’s about Mary speaking to her child,” says Duffin. “It’s an intimate, imagined conversation and very appropriate to the Mother and Child theme.” A Spanish Christmas piece from the 16th Century, E la don don, was printed in Venice in 1556 in the Cancionero de Upsala and survives in only one copy. Duffin says it’s a lively piece that will feature solos by Quire’s male singers. [Read more…]

Review: State Symphony Capella of Russia at the Cleveland Museum of Art (December 4)

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by Timothy Robson

StateSymphonyCappellaThe Ames Family Atrium at the Cleveland Museum of Art was turned into an imaginary Russian cathedral for the evening on December 4, when the museum presented the State Symphony Capella of Russia, conducted by Valery Polyansky, in a program of everything from Russian liturgical music to Irving Berlin. A temporary stage oriented toward the east was set up in the midst of the vast atrium. The audience sat in not-very-comfortable wooden folding chairs. The windows at the top of atrium reflected the marble exterior of the 1916 building and the ceiling lights created an ethereal effect. Although overwhelming reverberation might be expected in a space of that size, the music came through clearly, the room adding resonance but not confusion. A few small sections of the program received electrical amplification, but the concert was mostly acoustic.

The 50-voice choir demonstrated all the hallmarks of fine Russian choral singing: a clear, focused sound with seamless legato and blend. The tone was never forced, even at higher volumes. And, of course, there were those very low basses that are the DNA of Russian choral singing. [Read more…]

Preview: CMA “Mother and Child” Series — Questions for State Symphony Capella director Valery Polyansky

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by Mike Telin

StateSymphonyCappella“I don’t think you will have enough space in your publication to feature all my thoughts about ‘the Chorus, or the music’. Music is everything I breathe; it is everything I feel; and it is everything I work for,” Valery Polyansky wrote in a recent e-mail. “I am very fortunate that through the Choir, and the choral repertoire I can express my feelings and moods, as well as the richness of words, and the power of harmony! We are very much looking forward to returning to Cleveland during the Christmas time of the year.”

On Wednesday, December 4 beginning at 9:00 pm in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Ames Family Atrium, Valery Polyansky will lead the State Symphony Capella of Russia in a concert featuring Russian liturgical music, choruses and folk songs. David J. Rothenberg, associate professor of music at Case Western Reserve University, will discuss Marian music and ties to the museum’s collection at 7:30 p.m. in Gartner Auditorium. The concert is part of CMA’s Performing Arts “Mother and Child” Series.

Due to language barriers, Maestro Polyansky graciously agreed to answer questions through a translator via e-mail.

Mike Telin: Tell us about your program: why did you choose the repertoire? [Read more…]

Review: Three Concerts at the Transformer Station

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by Mike Telin

KNOX-GarthLets face it, not all music is best heard from a soft seat inside a recital hall with 500 to 1,000 of your closest friends. In fact, some music cries out to be heard in an intimate space where the audience and the performer are only a few feet if not inches from one another – we want to see the performer’s fingers navigate up and down the finger board of their instrument, their facial expressions that accent the comedy and seriousness in their music.

Thanks to a new series presented by the Cleveland Museum of Art at the Transformer Station, both new music lovers and the new music curious have a place to go to enjoy performances that feature composed and improvised music by some of the most accomplished artists working in contemporary music. I recently attended three CMA performers at the Transformer Station.

Irish-born violist Garth Knox began his October 27 concert with the very fun 16 Sneakers (2012) by Frederic Rzewski. A short work that includes spoken word – no these sneakers are not the kind one wears but rather someone who, like Rzewski’s piece, sneaks in — does what it came to do and gets out before anyone notices. [Read more…]

Preview: Antonio Pompa-Baldi talks about his November 24 Tri-C Classical Piano recital and his new Poulenc/Piaf CD on the Steinway label

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by Mike Telin

POMPA-BALDI-AntonioOn Sunday at 2:00 pm in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium, the Tri-C Classical Piano Recital Series presents Antonio Pompa-Baldi in a concert dedicated to Franz Liszt.

“I think it is an interesting program and one that I also recorded in a live recital in Cape Town, South Africa at the end of June for the Two Pianist label,” the pianist told us during a telephone conversation. “It’s a program dedicated to Liszt — but not entirely of his music.”

Sunday’s program opens with Sergei Lyapunov’s Transcendental Etude No. 12 (Elegy in memory of Franz Liszt). “Lyapunov composed twelve Transcendental Etudes just like Liszt, and the set is dedicated to him. I’ll complete the first half with the Twelve Etudes, op. 10, of Chopin – which as a set are also dedicated to Liszt.”

The second half of the program features Liszt’s Ballad in b minor and Sposalizio (Years of Pilgrimage, Book II). “Sposalizio was inspired by Raphael’s painting of the Marriage of the Virgin, and since this is also the Verdi year I’m also including Liszt’s Paraphrase of Verdi’s “Ernani.” [Read more…]

Review: CMA’s “Masters of the Fiddle” — MacMaster and Leahy (November 15)

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by Daniel Hathaway

MacMaster-&-Leahy“Never work with children or animals,” said W.C. Fields. Good advice — unless of course you have such a reliable brood as Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy, who closed the first half of their sold-out concert at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Friday evening with an adorable parade of child fiddlers, beginning with 4-year-old Clare, then 6-year-old Michael, then 7-year-old Mary Frances, and eventually a cameo by 2-year-old Julia, who didn’t fiddle but gamely joined in a step dance. (1-year-old Alec stayed behind, while a sixth MacMaster-Leahy protègé was definitely involved in the show but hasn’t been born yet).

That gesture reflects the wholesome, family-values nature of MacMaster’s and Leahy’s show in Gartner Auditorium on November 15, an engaging, 2-1/2 hour festival of Cape Breton-infused music that took traditional fiddling to new heights of sophistication while preserving its down-home charm. At the beginning, MacMaster quipped that this was their last stop on a 12-city tour, “so you got us fresh,” and later narrated a long but charming account of how she and her future husband met. [Read more…]

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