by Mike Telin
For a young musician, winning a concerto competition is always an honor. And performing that concerto with an orchestra is a moment to cherish. “I’ve played many concertos before with piano, but this is my first time with an orchestra and I’m enjoying it a lot,” Elena Ziegler said.
On Friday, May 3 at 8:00 pm at Severance Music Center, Ziegler will perform Lalo’s Cello Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra. Under the direction of Daniel Reith, the program also includes Valerie Coleman’s Umoja and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. Tickets are available online.
I reached the Copley High School junior by telephone and began our conversation by congratulating her on winning the competition and asking how she came to choose the Lalo.
“The first time I heard the Fauré 
What are the duties of an assistant conductor of a major orchestra? “Every day is an experience,” Daniel Reith said during a recent telephone conversation. Since assuming that position with The Cleveland Orchestra this season, Reith has had a lot on his plate. In addition to his involvement with numerous educational activities, he has led the Orchestra’s family concerts and the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Concert. Earlier this month he stepped in on very short notice for an ailing Klaus Mäkelä to lead three subscription concert performances.
An immigrant mother, struggling with her sense of identity, makes a plea to her new homeland in the hopes that her newborn daughter will have an easier time navigating it. This sentiment, presented in musical form, was especially fitting for a concert on Mother’s Day — not to mention one with a high percentage of mothers in the audience.
When Moonhee Kim’s violin teacher said he wanted her to learn the Prokofiev Violin Concerto, she was hoping he would say the second one. Of the composer’s two concerti for the instrument, No. 2 is more commonly performed, and it was the one Kim was most familiar with. But Concerto No. 1 was what he had in mind — and as it turns out, that was the perfect choice.
Over the years, audiences have had the privilege of hearing many outstanding performances by winners of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’s annual concerto competition. But on Sunday, February 20, the sizable crowd at Severance Music Center witnessed nothing short of musical magic during Dasara Beta’s brilliant performance of Alexander Arutiunian’s Trumpet Concerto.