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Preview: CMA opens its Masters of the Violin series with concert by L. Subramaniam

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by Mike Telin

SubramaniamsIndian violinist L. Subramaniam, “The Paganini of Indian Classical music,” has performed and recorded South Indian classical music, Western classical music both orchestral and non-Orchestral, and has also composed for and conducted major orchestras, scored for films and collaborated with a wide range of some of the greatest musicians from different genres of music.

On Friday, October 4 at 7:30 p.m. in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, L. Subramaniam will be joined by his son Ambi Subramaniam and percussionist Mahesh Krishnamurthy for a program of South Indian Carnatic music. Sonya Rhie Quintanilla, the George P. Bickford Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian Art, will preview the reopening of the Indian and Southeast Asian galleries with a pre-concert talk beginning at 6:00 p.m.

Subramaniam is an enthusiastic, engaging and thankfully patient conversationalist as he tells me that Indian classical music is melodically complex and that improvisation plays a major role in performance. He continues to explain that Friday’s concert of South Indian Carnatic music will consist of compositions based on ragas in different forms. One of the forms is Kriti, which consists of three sections based on a raga. At the end of each section they will return to the first line after which they will improvise on the line of the raga on which the Kriti is based. [Read more…]

Preview: Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series to revolve around four themes in 2013-2014

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by Mike Telin

NrityagramThe inside cover of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s 2013–14 concert series brochure encourages audiences to “Make a night of it,” when they attend one of CMA’s alluring and varied concerts. And if you have not visited the innovative Gallery One, the new West Wing, or taken a stroll through the majestic Ames Family Atrium, perhaps taking in a concert is what is needed to get you to CMA and “Make a night of it.”

Formerly known as VIVA! & Gala, the chain of performances is now called the CMA Performing Arts Series. Massoud Saidpour, curator of performing arts and music, says the change in name came about because of a change in structure. With “the new orientation of the performing arts at the Cleveland Museum of Art as a curatorial department, the museum acknowledges the multidisciplinary nature of artistic expression and regards performance-based art forms as essential disciplines to be explored in their own right.”

Saidpour added that it was the right decision for the museum at this moment. “This change allows for the realization of curatorial concepts as well as development of original, in-depth and research-oriented projects that set the standards of quality in these respective fields. Through meaningful dialogues between the museum’s visual arts collection and the performing arts, new vistas of artistic experience are explored.”

For the 2013-14 season Saidpour has assembled some of the world’s greatest music masters and has been curated the series around four themes: Masters of the Violin, Flamenco Festival, Asian Performances and Mother and Child. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Orchestra & CMA collaborate for “California Masterworks” (May 1 & 3) with a John Cage chaser afterwards

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by Mike Telin & Daniel Hathaway

TCO-Cal-MW-2

“Go West, young man, go West,” was the much quoted advice probably misattributed to Horace Greeley, and for many during the Westward Expansion, the ultimate destination was California.

Last week, in their second collaboration in Gartner Auditorium, The Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Museum of Art’s VIVA! & Gala Performing Arts Series presented “California Masterworks”, a two-concert series that drew on six seminal works by Henry Cowell, Dane Rudhyar, Lou Harrison, John Adams, James Tenney and Terry Riley to create a retrospective of music created by Californians — either born or raised there (Cowell, Harrison and Riley) or moved there to spend extended periods of time (Adams, Rudhyar and Tenney) but all of whom are linked by “common threads — different threads”, “bumping the classical tradition slightly off its axis” and offering “not so much a glimpse of the fringe as of the future,” as the Museum’s Tom Welch wrote in his extensive introduction in the program book. [Read more…]

Preview: “California Masterworks” at Cleveland Museum of Art — a conversation with James Feddeck, Tom Welch and the Calder Quartet’s Andrew Bulbrook

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by Mike Telin

TCO-at-CMA-MastroianniOn Wednesday, May 1st and Friday, May 3rd in Gartner Auditorium, The Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Museum of Art will come together for their second collaboration, California Masterworks.

How did the two organizations come to the idea? “That’s a good question,” says Cleveland Orchestra Assistant Conductor James Feddeck. “After the enormous success of our first ever collaboration in 2011 we all began to talk about what the next collaboration would look like so I think the question is why California? That is what we are hoping to uncover during the week.”

So why California? Following a number of discussions, the two organizations determined that they should do something that embraced American music and the American spirit, but it wasn’t until Feddeck and Tom Welsh, the museum’s Director of City Stages, began to think about the composers they wanted to highlight that they discovered a common thread between them. “We found this interesting connection in that they were all influenced by their West Coast inspiration. I’m not sure that we are presenting a conclusion with these two concerts but what we are doing is presenting the music, the story and this common thread.” [Read more…]

Preview: CMA Viva! & Gala: Paris Combo — a conversation with David Lewis

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by Mike Telin

Paris-ComboThe story of Paris Combo began in the early 1990s when vocalist Belle du Berry, guitarist Potzi and percussionist François Jeannin began performing together in Paris as members of a quirky retro revue. In 1994 Australian trumpeter and pianist David Lewis joined the group and the group honed their sound while playing in cafes and on barges along the Seine.

Since the release of their debut CD in 1997, Paris Combo has released three internationally acclaimed CD’s and toured extensively in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia. Following a four year break, the group reunited in a rehearsal studio to compose new songs. After bassist Emmanuel Chabbey was added to the group’s lineup in 2011, Paris Combo returned to extensive touring and performing new material that would evolve into “5” their fifth CD. In conjunction with that release, on Friday, April 19, Paris Combo kicks off their 12-city US tour on the stage of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium as part of the museum’s VIVA! & Gala series.

We spoke to David Lewis by telephone from Paris. [Read more…]

Preview: CMA VIVA! & Gala — a chat with Afro-pop star Oliver Mtukudzi

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by Mike Telin

Mtukudzi-Oliver“It’s the people that keep me going. As long as there are people there is something to talk about and if there’s something to talk about then there’s something to sing about,” legendary guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Oliver Mtukudzi told us by telephone from his home in Zimbabwe. “My inspiration comes from the people. The way we live, our personal experiences and what I see around me.”

So it was no surprise when the soft-spoken 60 year-old musician says that he and his five-member band are looking forward to their performance in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Ames Family Atrium on Friday, April 5th beginning at 9:00 pm. The Tuku Dance Party — Mr. Mtukudzi is affectionately called “Tuku” by his fans — is presented as part of the Museum’s VIVA! & Gala series. “The performance will be a big party and that will be very nice,” Mtukudzi chuckles. [Read more…]

Review: CMA VIVA! & Gala: Naseer Shamma and Al-Oyoun Ensemble (March 15)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Shamma-NaseerNow that United States forces have ended their occupation of Iraq, oud virtuoso Naseer Shamma has returned to touring in this country after a ten-year, self-imposed absence. He brought his excellent Al-Oyoun ensemble to the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on Friday, March 15 for a remarkable performance on its VIVA! & Gala series that included one dramatic testimony to the events of the last decade during an 11-piece set that otherwise treated the large audience to both strange and familiar sounds and a wide range of musical forms.

Once a rarity, the expressive voice of the oud has become better known in the West — it recently evoked the Arabic music of Spain in the late fourteenth century during a performance by the Broken Consort at St. John’s Cathedral. In the hands of Naseer Shamma, it speaks eloquently both as a solo instrument and as a member of the traditional Iraqi takht or ensemble, which in Gartner last Friday included the Qanun, an 81-string zither, the Nay or end-blown flute in several sizes, the Riqq or Arab tambourine, a bass viol and two violins (19th century latecomers from Europe). [Read more…]

Preview: CMA VIVA! & Gala: a conversation with Fado singer Ana Moura

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by Mike Telin

MouraWhy is it that Fado, the traditional soulful music of Portugal, has been embraced by audiences around the world? “I think more people are trying to discover new musical sounds that can make them feel different things and Fado has [a way of doing that],” says Fado superstar Ana Moura. On Friday, March 22nd beginning at 7:30 pm in Gartner Auditorium, Ana Moura will share the music from her latest album Desfado and other traditional Fado songs as part of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s VIVA! & Gala series.

We spoke to Ana Moura by telephone in California, and talked about her new album, growing up in a musical family, and her past musical projects with the Rolling Stones and Prince. We began by asking her how she describes the Fado sound? [Read more…]

Preview: Naseer Shamma and Al-Oyoun Ensemble to visit Cleveland Museum of Art

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by Mike Telin

Shamma-NaseerThere is no one path that leads a musician to choose their instrument. But for Iraqi oud virtuoso Naseer Shamma it might have been predestination. “At five years old I asked my family to send me to a teacher to learn the oud,” Naseer Shamma told us by telephone from his hotel in New York. “They told me you are a child, the oud is for old people. You can play accordion or guitar. But I said no! I want to play the oud. I don’t know why.”

On Friday, March 15 beginning at 7:30pm in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium, Naseer Shamma & Al-Oyoun Ensemble will make their Cleveland debut as part of the museum’s VIVA! & Gala series. The concert is part of Shamma and his ensemble’s first US tour in over a decade which includes stops in Washington DC, New York City and Columbus. [Read more…]

Preview: CMA VIVA! & Gala: The Idan Raichel Project

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by Mike Telin

RecentlyRaichel voted Israel’s musician of the decade, musician, composer and producer Idan Raichel exemplifies the term World Music. On Saturday, February 16 beginning at 7:30 pm in Gartner Auditorium, the Cleveland Museum of Art’s VIVA! & Gala series presents The Idan Raichel Project. During the past ten years Raichel has worked with nearly 100 different musicians and singers from around the globe. “Each album has different bands and different styles,” Raichel explained during a telephone conversation from his home in Tel Aviv. “We’ll have a seven member group and will explore many songs and their rhythms.”

Born in Kfar Saba, Israel, in 1977 to a family with Eastern European roots, Idan Raichel began playing the accordion at the age of nine, and somehow always found himself attracted to Gypsy music and Tango. During high school he played keyboards and studied jazz and while serving in the military he joined the Army rock band and toured military bases performing covers of Israeli and European pop songs. [Read more…]

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