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Preview: CMA’s Masters of the Fiddle — a conversation with Persian spiked fiddle virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor

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by Mike Telin

Kalhor“I think that being back in Cleveland is a very beautiful déjà vu. I have been there many times with various projects and it’s so nice to return and play for the audience in the same place again,” kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor told us by telephone from the west coast. “As a touring musician it’s always very nice when you develop that relationship with a venue. It builds a trust that they want to hear your new projects and I’m glad that I have this relationship with the Museum.”

On Wednesday, November 20 Persian spiked fiddle virtuoso and three-time Grammy nominee Kayhan Kalhor returns to the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium for a concert beginning at 7:30 pm. Kalhor will be joined by Ali Bahrami Fard, santoor. The performance is part of the Museum’s Masters of the Fiddle series.

Kalhor, a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, is known around the globe for his performances of traditional Persian music as well as for his multiple collaborations. In addition to Silk Road, Kalhor has appeared as soloist with various ensembles and orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de Lyon and the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, and was recently featured on the soundtrack of Francis Ford Copolla’s Youth without Youth in a score on which he collaborated with Osvaldo Golijov.

Kahlor says that his CMA program is the result of an experimental project that began after meeting instrument maker Peter Biffin in Germany. [Read more…]

Preview: CMA’s “Masters of the Fiddle” — a chat with Natalie MacMaster

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by Mike Telin

MacMaster-&-LeahyOn Friday, November 15 beginning at 7:30 pm in Gartner Auditorium the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series presents Masters of the Fiddle: Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy. The sold-out concert includes French Canadian, Celtic, Bluegrass and Cajun music in addition to original compositions by MacMaster and Leahy.

“Sold out, how exciting is that!” Natalie MacMaster exclaimed by telephone. MacMaster says that she always looks forward to being on stage with Donnell Leahy, who is also her husband. She is also quick to point out that they do travel as a family and yes, they do travel with their four children. So how does MacMaster juggle everything that comes with the life of a working mother who performs over 100 concerts dates a year? “I don’t really know the answer, but I do know that life is full and rich and exciting and difficult and wonderful. We’re really living and all the things you could hope for are happening for us, with the children, building a home and being able to play music. It’s fabulous.”

MacMaster says the show as always, is very energetic and upbeat. [Read more…]

Preview: Composer Mark Fell to present “ambisonic work” at the Transformer Station

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by Mike Telin

FELL-Mark“I became interested in electronic music around the age of thirteen,” recalls Sheffield (UK) based multidisciplinary artist Mark Fell. “At the time there was a movement in England called new romantics, which was kind of like synthpop with groups like the Human League and Soft Cell.”

On Wednesday, November 13 beginning at 7:30 pm, CMA Concerts at Transformer Station presents Mark Fell in what he calls an “ambisonic” work that uses thirty-two channels of analogue synthesis that goes from the border of silence to the other extreme. “It’s an immersive experience, but I’m struggling to think of a name for it,” he told us by telephone from EMPAC at Rensselaer in Troy, New York.

Fell, who is known for combining popular music styles with computer-based compositions — with a particular emphasis on algorithmic and mathematical systems — says he developed the concept for the piece this past summer in Stockholm. “The studio I was working in had these big analogue modular synthesizers and what I did was to record a lot of very basic tonal material from the static oscillators, lots of variations of this very simple thing. The piece that I am doing in Cleveland uses thirty-two of these oscillators.” [Read more…]

Review: Mark O’Connor String Quartet on CMA Performing Arts Series (October 30)

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by Nicholas Jones

O'Connor-SQMark O’Connor has done more than probably anyone else to bring the bluegrass tradition of Appalachian fiddle playing to the attention of classical and crossover audiences.

O’Connor, who performed last week with his string quartet on the Cleveland Museum of Art’s “Masters of the Violin” series, has a formidable violin technique, based on what he calls the “language” of bluegrass, with dazzling arpeggios, energetic and persistent double stops, prominent slides, percussive “bow crunches,” and—above all— rhythmic drive. O’Connor has very successfully elevated his traditional Appalachian fiddle techniques to embrace the classical concert stage. He is a prolific composer in this mode, and has created a popular series of pedagogical materials, including workshops and summer camps, to build interest in the progressive bluegrass style that has come to be known as “newgrass.”

Introduced from the stage, the program included a few shorter pieces, especially duets at the beginning with each of the members of his string quartet, as well as a dazzling solo improvisation by O’Connor himself. [Read more…]

Review: Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XXI: CMA “Masters of the Violin” (November 1)

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by Nicholas Jones

SAVALL-RebecHespèrion XXI has long broadened from its original musical base (the viol music of the Renaissance in western Europe) to encompass the music of areas usually considered the margins of Europe. The program they presented last week at the Cleveland Museum of Art was a witness to the diverse musical cultures of one of those margins, the rich and dangerous mosaic of the Balkan countries.

In a beautifully crafted program led by the Catalonian gambist Jordi Savall with scrupulous attention to detail as well as overall coherence and impact, this ensemble of seven instrumentalists and five singers took the audience through a moving geographical and emotional journey.

The program was the best tour one could imagine of this troubled and fascinating region. The songs moved through whole worlds of language — Serbian, Greek, Hebrew, Bulgarian, Bosnian, and more. The program’s mobility itself reflected the area’s many diasporas — of Jews, Ottomans, Roma, and Christians alike, who through the centuries have migrated through the region. The singers and instrumentalists themselves were a United Nations of the Balkan peninsula, each a master of their regional style and instrument. [Read more…]

Preview: CMA Performing Arts Series — Jordi Savall and Hesperion XXI in “Honey and Blood”

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by Daniel Hathaway

SAVALL-RebecFor the third November in a row, Jordi Savall will visit the Cleveland Museum of Art to play on the museum’s Performing Arts Series. In 2011, Savall appeared with his son, Ferran, in a program called “Music Dialogues from Orient and Occident,” when Jordi played lira da gamba and seven-string bass viol and Ferran played theorbo and sang. In 2012, Jordi Savall brought his ensemble, Hespèrion XXI, to Cleveland to chronicle two centuries of European Renaissance and early Baroque consort music — an occasion on which he played the treble viol.

This year, Savall and Hespèrion XXI will return to Gartner Auditorium on Friday evening, November 1, when the resourceful Catalan musician will play vielle and rebec as part of the Museum’s “Masters of the Violin” series-within-a-series in a program entitled “Honey and Blood: The Cycles of Life in the Mosaic of Christians, Sephardic Jews & Muslims of the Balkans.” The ensemble includes five singers and half a dozen other instrumentalists playing exotic regional instruments. We reached Jordi Savall via Skype in his studio near Barcelona to ask how this program came about. [Read more…]

Preview: CMA “Masters of the Violin” — a conversation with Mark O’Connor

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by Mike Telin

O'Connor-SQViolinist, composer and educator Mark O’Connor is not a folk musician or a jazz musician or a classical musician. Nor is he a musician specializing in any one of the multitude of musical styles he has studied. The categorization of Mark O’Connor is nearly impossible as he is his own musical genre.

On Wednesday, October 30 at 7:30 in Gartner Auditorium, Mark O’Connor returns to Cleveland with his string quartet for performances of his String Quartet No. 2 “Bluegrass,” Appalachia Waltz and String Quartet No. 3 “Old-Time.” The concert is co-presented by CIM and the Cleveland Museum of Art as part of the Mixon Hall Masters Series: Return of the Composer/Virtuoso and the CMA Performing Arts Series: Masters of the Violin. A conversation between O’Connor and CIM president Joel Smirnoff begins at 6:00 p.m.

Through his popular summer string camps and method books, O’Connor is training the next generation of musicians in the art of what he refers to as “American” string playing. And while in town he will also present master classes in string improvisation and composition as well an educational workshop at CIM. [Read more…]

Preview: Garth Knox and Scott Dixon up next on CMA’s Transformer Station Series

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by Mike Telin

KNOX-GarthThe Cleveland Museum of Art’s new series, Concerts at the Transformer Station (1460 West 29th Street) was launched on October 5th with a captivating performance by tabla player Salar Nader. Never has an hour gone by so quickly as Nader engagingly discussed and displayed his masterful musicality as he guided the audience on a rhythmic journey across India, Pakistan and his native Afghanistan.

The Transformer Station is the perfect venue for showcasing solo artists: it’s hard to imagine being able to get any closer to the music. Refreshments and conversation following the performance was a delightful way to mingle with your fellow audience mates and say hello to the evening’s guest performer.

Transformer Station concerts continue on Sunday, October 27 at 7:30 with a performance by the twenty-first century troubadour, violist Garth Knox. “Troubadour” is the word Knox used to describe himself during a lively telephone conversation. “I’m a player/performer kind of a troubadour who goes around the world playing his music and other peoples and bringing news from one part to the other.” [Read more…]

Review: CMA “Masters of the Violin” features L. Subramaniam on October 4

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by Alexandra A. Vago

SubramaniamsThe “Masters of the Violin” series opened on Friday, October 4 in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art with a sublime performance of South Indian (Carnatic) classical music. Violinist L. Subramaniam joined by his son Ambi Subramaniam (violin) and Mahesh Krishnamurthy (mridangam) set the bar high in the first of ten concert in the series.

The evening was filled with virtuosic playing and command of the instrument. Subramaniam has an uncanny ability to improvise with complex and intricate patterns infused with an intensely rich color palette of sound. It is no wonder why he is often referred to as “the Paganini of Indian Classical music.”

To set the mood, upon entering the auditorium, the audience was visually drawn into Indian culture with a slideshow featuring highlights from the Museum’s permanent collection of Indian and Southeast Asian Art that will open in December 2013. [Read more…]

News: CMA announces concert series at the Transformer Station

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Transformer-StationBeginning this weekend, the Cleveland Museum of Art will present its first set of concerts at The Transformer Station in Ohio City. The concerts of “adventurous music” both composed and improvised, will feature remarkable contemporary artists in solo performances. All concerts are one hour long and are presented without intermission with an emphasis on intimacy and spontaneity. All tickets are $20.

The series begins on Saturday, October 5 at 7:30 pm with the rhythms of South Asia and Afghanistan as realized by tabla player Salar Nader, who plays regularly with Amjad Ali Khan and with the Kronos Quartet.

On Sunday, October 27 at 7:30 pm, violist Garth Knox will play early, contemporary and traditional music including works by Kurtag, Ligeti, Sciarrino, Rzewski, Knox and others with the assistance of Cleveland Orchestra bassist Scott Dixon. [Read more…]

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