by Nicholas Stevens
Few composers in the classical tradition have successfully transformed stories for children into engrossing all-ages artworks. In a concert at the Cleveland Museum of Art last week, Third Coast Percussion — the Chicago-based quartet of Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin, and David Skidmore — made a strong case for their new work, Paddle to the Sea.
by Jarrett Hoffman
A Native Canadian boy in the Nipigon country of Ontario dreams of a journey he knows he can’t make. But a figure carved out of cedar, with a strip of lead to keep it upright in the water, and a message inscribed on the bottom to please return it to the water? That might just make it all the way through the Great Lakes, down Niagara Falls, past Quebec City, to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and beyond — despite encounters with a snake, a forest fire, passing ships, pollution, and people along the way.
That’s the tale of Bill Mason’s beautiful film Paddle to the Sea (1966), based on an award-winning children’s book and nominated for an Oscar. You can watch the 28-minute movie here, via the National Film Board of Canada. But you’ll want to take it in again this weekend, when a Chicago-based, Grammy-winning percussion quartet visits the Cleveland Museum of Art.
by Nicholas Stevens
Of the many quotable lines issued by filmmaker and musician Jim Jarmusch at the Cleveland Museum of Art last week, two stood out: “I’m a self-proclaimed dilettante, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” and later, “The most beautiful thing humans do — have done — is music.” Both comments, given during a post-concert interview in the Museum’s Gartner Auditorium, shed light on the performance that Jarmusch and his bandmate Carter Logan had just staged.
by Nicholas Stevens
Kyoungtack Hong’s painting Library-Mt. Everest (2014) depicts exactly what its title suggests: a few bookshelf cubes and decorative objects cluster around the edge of the canvas, with a photorealistic image of Mount Everest in sunlit glory at the center. The work plays with the conventions of Korean chaekgeori, a kind of 19th-century painted screen on which artists depicted the contents of a scholar’s study. The musical experiences offered by Ji Aeri, a virtuoso of the gayageum — a zither-like instrument — and percussionist Kim Woongsik at a recent concert involved a process not unlike that of taking in Hong’s painting: as one moves from the outer portions of a work toward its heart, simplicity yields to sublimity.
by Jarrett Hoffman
Winding down their exhibit on the Korean still-life paintings known as chaekgeori, the Cleveland Museum of Art presents Ji Aeri, a virtuoso on the zither-like kayagum. This program of traditional and contemporary Korean music on Sunday, November 5 at 2:00 pm in Gartner Auditorium is free, but tickets are required.
Ji Aeri teaches at Seoul National University and is internationally recognized for her immaculate and sensitive readings of music both old and avant-garde. “It’s so nice to present tradition and modernity at the same time in this concert,” she wrote in a recent email conversation.
Her interest in the kayagum actually has roots in another art form. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
Jim Jarmusch is best-known as an independent filmmaker whose stories unfold in his own slow, strange, beautiful way. He’s also a native of Cuyahoga Falls and one of two members of the post-rock band SQÜRL, who take on film from another angle at the Cleveland Museum of Art next week.
On Wednesday, November 1 at 7:30 pm at CMA’s Gartner Auditorium, Jim Jarmusch (electric guitar and keyboard) and Carter Logan (drum kit) of SQÜRL will play their own ambient, drone-heavy, semi-improvised scores to four avant-garde silent films from the 1920s by Man Ray: L’étoile de mer, Emak bakia, Le retour à la raison, and Les mystères du château du dé (see the links to watch them on YouTube). Reto Thüring, curator of contemporary art at the museum, will host a conversation with the musicians following the performance.
SQÜRL describe themselves as an enthusiastically marginal rock band from New York City who like big drums and distorted guitars, cassette recorders, loops, feedback, sad country songs, molten stoner core, chopped and screwed hip-hop, and imaginary movie scores. Their work includes four EP’s, a live album, and the scores to three Jarmusch films: The Limits of Control, Only Lovers Left Alive, and Paterson. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
American composer Lou Harrison (1917-2003) studied with Arnold Schoenberg and Henry Cowell, but followed his own creative path, strongly influenced by Asian music, especially the gamelan music of Java (now a part of Indonesia). In celebration of Harrison’s 100th anniversary, the Cleveland Museum of Art presented a concert of his music on Friday, October 20 in Gartner Auditorium. The evening featured radiant performances by the MIT-based Gamelan Galak Tika, founded and directed by composer Evan Ziporyn. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
Famous for his integration of traditional musics of Asia into classical music of the West, composer Lou Harrison died in 2003 at the age of 85 as he was on his way to Ohio State University for a week of performances of his music. A few months shy of his 100th birthday, the Cleveland Museum of Art will celebrate the composer’s centennial this Friday, October 20 at 7:30 pm at CMA’s Gartner Auditorium.
The program includes Harrison’s Concerto for Piano with Javanese Gamelan and his Suite for Violin with American Gamelan, and will feature pianist Sarah Cahill, violinist David Bowlin, and the Boston-based group Gamelan Galak Tika, directed by Evan Ziporyn, playing two of the composer’s own sets of gamelans. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
After Roberto Plano won the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 2001, he returned to his native Italy to teach and concertize. On Sunday, October 15 at 2:00 pm, Plano will revisit Cleveland to open this year’s Tri-C Classical Piano Series in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art with a free concert of music by Liszt, Villa-Lobos, Ginastera, and Gershwin.
A year ago, Plano accepted a position at Boston University, and he and his wife and three daughters moved to the United States. In a telephone interview from Boston, Plano noted that the transition has been both difficult and rewarding. “I knew the United States very well, but I never lived here for more than a couple of weeks at a time,” he said.
by Mike Telin
Known for her eloquent performances of traditional harp repertoire, as well as for pushing the musical boundaries of the instrument, harpist Brandee Younger has shared the stage with jazz greats including Ravi Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, and Jack DeJohnette, as well as singer-songwriters John Legend and Lauryn Hill.
On Wednesday, May 10 at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium, Brandee Younger will be joined by equally talented and diverse pianist Courtney Bryan for an evening that will celebrate the music of jazz harpists Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby. The concert is presented as part of CMA’s Performing Arts Series.
“I don’t really consider myself to be a jazz harpist,” Younger said during a telephone conversation. “I’m sort of anti-label because it throws you into this box, although I am most visible in the jazz world, and jazz harpists like Dorothy and Alice are my heroes. But I just consider myself to be a harpist.” [Read more…]