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Fretwork viol consort at CMA: “Music from the Age of Michelangelo” (Oct. 23)

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by Nicholas Stevens

Spare a thought for Fretwork: a recent tour of North America hit a snag when an airline cracked one of their violas da gamba. Instruments of this family constitute the entire toolbox of the group, a viol consort that presents the fraternal twin to the violin as though it had never lost its cachet. For many Northeast Ohioans, warm feelings for the group remain fresh after a late-October concert, part of a tour that pitted them against all too modern perils. In a careless, rushing world, their meticulous musicianship and willingness to let music unfold feel less like dusty artifacts than like emblems of a future worth fighting for. [Read more…]

Ámà: The Gathering Place at The Cleveland Museum of Art

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by Mike Telin

When Nigerian sound and installation artist Emeka Ogboh first received the invitation from the Cleveland Museum of Art to create a work for the Ames Family Atrium, he didn’t have a notion of what the work would be. But when he made his first site visit to the Museum in February of 2018, the city’s winter weather became a source of inspiration. “It was grey and not so happy looking,” Ogboh said with a chuckle during a Skype conversation from his home in Berlin.

After spending time in the Atrium and observing how it functions as a gathering place for social activities, he began to think, “why don’t I bring something to Cleveland from Nigeria?” adding that if he had made his first visit in the summer “it would have been a different piece.”

If you have not had the opportunity to experience Ámà: The Gathering Place, you have a few more weeks to do so — the exhibit will remain on display through the first of December. Commissioned for the Atrium, the installation uses sound, sculpture, and textiles that capture the sense of a village square reminiscent of Ogboh’s birthplace in Enugu. [Read more…]

Zohn Collective and La Coperacha
at Cleveland Museum of Art

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by Mike Telin

It is often impossible to say why a work of art captivates you to the point of becoming an obsession. Such is the case for composer Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon and Juan Rulfo’s novel Pedro Páramo. In his program notes for his scenic cantata Comala, Zohn-Muldoon writes: “To explain why Pedro Páramo moves me so deeply is beyond my capabilities as an essayist.” 

On Friday, October 18 at 7:30 pm in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium, the Zohn Collective will present “Portals,” which pairs Comala with the world premiere of Daniel Pesca’s Nocturnes, a setting of four poems by Irving Feldman. Conducted by Timothy Weiss, performers include soprano Tony Arnold and tenor Zach Finkelstein, with La Coperacha Puppet Company. The performance is part of CMA’s Performing Arts Series. Tickets are available online.

“This is a piece I’ve been composing on and off for all of my adult life,” Zohn-Muldoon said of Comala during a telephone interview. “Every time it gets performed I add a new theme — I just finished one that will be premiered on this occasion — so now it’s gotten very large.”

Comala was premiered by The Furious Band at the Festival Música y Escena in México City in 2001. [Read more…]

Cleveland Museum of Art:
Fretwork and Michelangelo

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Fretwork, the famous England-based viol consort, will return to Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art next week for a program inspired by the Museum’s current exhibit “Michelangelo: Mind of the Master.”

On Wednesday, October 23 at 7:30 pm, Fretwork will play “Music from the Age of Michelangelo,” a program based on musical developments that occurred during that artist’s life. One was the emergence of the violas da gamba, and the trend of homogeneous ensembles.

Another was a book of music published in 1501 by Ottaviano Petrucci that represented a major technological breakthrough in the field of printing. The Harmonice Musices Odhecaton (“One Hundred Harmonic Pieces of Music”) was the first music book to be printed using movable type, and contained works for three to six parts — mostly vocal pieces, but without text — by major composers of the time.

[Read more…]

Electroacoustic composer Sarah Davachi on CMA series at Transformer Station (Oct. 6)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Some composers of electroacoustic music are content to assemble collections of ear-tickling sounds — the musical equivalent of shiny objects that briefly attract attention. Others construct pieces that feature some kind of unifying narrative that invites the listener on a journey with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Canadian-born Sarah Davachi belongs to the latter persuasion, as she demonstrated at Transformer Station on Sunday evening, October 6. Her engaging, hour-long performance was part of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series. [Read more…]

Electroacoustic musician Sarah Davachi makes her Cleveland debut at Transformer Station 

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by Mike Telin

While growing up in Calgary, Sarah Davachi studied the piano — until it stopped engaging her. “It didn’t feel like the instrument I wanted to use to express myself,” the electroacoustic musician said during a telephone interview. “When I got the bug to make, as opposed to just play other people’s music, I started letting go of the piano.” Then, in 2007, Davachi fortuitously took a job at Calgary’s National Music Centre, which houses a large collection of musical instruments including vintage synthesizers and organs. Davachi’s life was forever changed.

On Sunday, October 6 at 7:30 pm at Transformer Station, Sarah Davachi will make her Cleveland debut with a solo concert of electronic soundscapes. The evening is part of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Performing Arts Series. Tickets are available online.

A graduate of the University of Calgary, Davachi also holds a master’s degree in electronic music and recording media from Mills College and is currently pursuing a PhD in musicology at UCLA. Her compositions combine her interest in vintage analog synthesizers with contemporary treatment of acoustic instruments. She released her first recording, Barons Court, in 2015. Her ninth album, Pale Bloom, was released in June of this year. [Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland 2019: Under the Influence

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by Mike Telin

Since bursting onto the scene in 2012 with its Big Bang!, ChamberFest Cleveland has established itself as an organization of the highest musical integrity with a seemingly endless number of themed programs. Looking through the archives of this publication, it’s fascinating to see the imaginative and clever way the Festival has reinvented itself each year.

But a closer look reveals that ChamberFest’s mission, “to nurture a deep family-like connection between musicians and audiences of all ages,” has never waned. In summing up the 2016 season, ClevelandClassical.com critic Neil McCalmont noted, “Technical prowess, fierce dedication, and the cultivation of friendships all contribute to ChamberFest’s captivating concerts, which keep audiences coming back season after season.”

Season 8, titled Under the Influence, considers the factors that inspire and influence composers. Cutting-edge pieces by John Adams, John Cage, and Steve Reich will anchor works by other classical composers. Pre-concert talks will be held prior to most concerts and are open to the public. Tickets and subscriptions are on sale now and range in price from $15 to $40. For concert details and additional information, call (216) 471-8887 or visit www.chamberfestcleveland.com.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Museum of Art debuts Cenk Ergün’s Formare (May 8)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cleveland audiences had their first live encounters with the music of Turkish-born composer Cenk Ergün in March of 2016, when the JACK Quartet premiered his commissioned works Sonare and Celare in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Ergün’s second appearance at the Museum earlier this month came in the form of a Cleveland Foundation Creative Fusion project. On Wednesday evening, May 8, the composer (seated on the pavement above) unveiled his hour-long Formare, turning the Ames Family Atrium into a vast sound installation. [Read more…]

Cleveland Museum of Art to present world premiere of Ergün’s Formare

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by Mike Telin

Since its inception in 2008, the Cleveland Foundation’s Creative Fusion program has brought more than 80 international artists to Cleveland for residencies. For the program’s latest edition, the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is partnering with the Foundation in the commissioning of six new works by composers from across the globe under the auspices of the Museum’s Performing Arts Series.

On Wednesday, May 8 at 7:30 pm in the Museum’s Ames Family Atrium, composer Cenk Ergün will present Formare, the second premiere of the series. The work is scored for female choir, children’s choir, harpsichords, and trombones. The hour-long concert is free.

Responding to questions by email, Ergün said that the work’s title, Formare, means “to form” in Latin, and refers both to the formation of sound, and to the positioning of the performers within the space. Ergün will use both the ground level and second-floor allées of the atrium.

“The four trombones are divided into pairs and placed on the west and east allées,” Ergün said. “Four of the twelve singers are spread across the north allée, and the other eight, along with three harpsichords and a children’s choir, are positioned evenly across the ground floor. [Read more…]

“Avital Meets Avital” at the Cleveland Museum of Art (Apr. 10)

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by Nicholas Stevens

Building on shared qualities, musicians from divergent traditions and genres can achieve synthesis in sound. This is the premise behind Avital Meets Avital, an album and touring program devised by two unrelated holders of the same Moroccan-Jewish surname. The premise of such cross-genre collaborations implies that musical matter fired from opposing directions will fuse, but still generate the hot glow of differences reconciled. In a recent performance in Cleveland, however, no such glimmer of inter-genre friction remained. [Read more…]

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